


Insert Gun Into Mouth

by Renegade_Angels



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Political Animals
Genre: Ambiguous Characters, Assassins, Depression, I am making up all the science, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Open Relationships, Past Torture, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spies, TJ as a potential Winter Soldier, Threesome - F/M/M, post CA:TWS fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-03-31 10:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 35,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3975232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renegade_Angels/pseuds/Renegade_Angels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On October fourth, Captain America was announced a fugitive. On October sixth, SHIELD fell away to Hydra, and the world began descending into chaos. On October seventh, Air Force One fell into the water.</p><p>TJ Hammond never wanted to be a part of this, but when he gets taken by Hydra and given a newer version of the Super Soldier serum, he has no choice. While his mother is trying to keep her country from falling completely apart, TJ is dealing with something a lot more terrifying: he's not the only one with the new serum, and because this is the Marvel Universe, the other recipients are all Hydra.</p><p>Well, at least he isn't trying to save the world on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fall Fall Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so if you follow me on tumblr (http://the--renegade--angels.tumblr.com/) then you might have witnessed some things tagged as "political outre." This is the "political outre" in question. It's a crossover of CA:TWS, Political Animals, and my own series (Outre Academy, wow Jeff you're so creative) that was supposed to be a small little one-shot to help me deal with my emotions.
> 
> Well, I have too many emotions, and that one-shot turned into 83 pages of TJ Hammond and Margaret Johnson kicking ass, which then turned into a NaNoWriMo project... and basically I adopted TJ/the whole of Political Animals.
> 
> On a side note, I wrote this initially when I had only seen the first four episodes of Political Animals, so forgive me if some things are a little bit off. I've also messed with some timelines, but that was just because I was too lazy to try and figure out when shit was really going down.

On October fourth, 2014, Captain Steven G. Rogers was announced a fugitive. Two days later, Margaret Johnson watched as Agents Carter and Rumlow held guns to each other’s heads as the fate of the world dangled between three helicarriers. She listened as the fugitive Captain gave a rousing speech to all the SHIELD agents, and then watched as the helicarriers burned, taking Project Insight, SHIELD, and Hydra down with them.

 

Margaret Johnson didn’t go home until October seventh, 2014. She stayed in the Triskelion, trying to make sense of everything that was happening, and trying to help the other survivors. By the time she walked up to her apartment, the sun had already risen and a few of her neighbours were meandering the halls. They paid no attention to the auburn-haired woman with cuts and bruises on her arms and bags under her eyes. They were too busy getting to their own jobs.

 

Margaret Johnson reached her apartment, number 307, and remembered the mission she had been assigned three days before Captain Rogers had been declared a fugitive. Nick Fury, The now-deceased director of SHIELD, had assigned her to the mission, and even though both the director and the agency were gone, Margaret didn't know if that meant her mission was as well.

 

Her assignment was to watch and protect three important political figures: Secretary of State Elaine Barrish, and her twin sons, Thomas and Douglas. The Secretary’s mother was also on Margaret’s protection list, but Fury had said that Margaret Barrish wasn’t a likely target.

 

Margaret Johnson had meant to ask Fury what the older Barrish woman would be a possible target of, but she’d never gotten the chance.

 

The Secretary and her two sons could still be in danger, and Margaret could still be their only safety net. Sure, they had their own protection detail, but the Secret Service could only do so much. Margaret’s training at Outré Academy, stunted though it might have been, was a more intense training than anything the Service could ever dream. It was also unethical, but Margaret supposed that a lack of training ethics created unbeatable agents.

 

She stilled her thoughts and brought her hand up to knock on her door. She had a key, of course, but she didn’t want to startle her fiancé. Mark wasn’t usually jumpy, but if he’d just gotten back from a particularly straining hit job, he’d probably still be on edge. Margaret wasn’t in the mood for a firefight. She’d shot enough bullets as it was.

 

The door opened before Margaret could knock, though, and she found herself staring at her daughter, Vivian, and Mark. Vi had her backpack on and looked excited for her day at school, and Mark looked like a gallon of coffee couldn’t save him. Vi gasped. “Mama! You’re back!”

 

“Hey Vi,” Margaret said, a smile sliding onto her face. She knelt down and let Vi leap into her arms. Vi smacked a kiss onto Margaret’s forehead before bouncing away from her mother and looking her up and down. Unlike the neighbours, Vi noticed Margaret’s injuries. “Mama, you’re hurt!”

 

“I had a long shift at work.” Margaret said, glancing up at Mark. The brunet cocked an eyebrow, a definite sign that he wanted some details about Margaret’s “shift” once he’d dropped Vi off at school and the two of them were swamped in their own blankets. Margaret expected that; Mark had probably seen the news and knew what Margaret had just survived.  He didn’t show any tangible relief, though. He leaned in and pecked Margaret’s cheek. “Good to have you back. You’ll be sticking around for more than a few days, right?”

 

“Pretty sure they terminated my contract, Mark.” Margaret said. It was her way of saying that there was no SHIELD to go back to, even if she wanted to go back. The only loose end she hadn’t tied up was the one concerning the Barrish family. She’d tie that up later. Right now, she wanted to get some needed sleep and maybe discuss her time at SHIELD with her fiancé.

 

Mark gave her a sympathetic shrug of his shoulders. “Sorry about that.”

 

“Thanks.” Margaret said.

 

“Mama, I love you, but I need to go to school.” Vi nudged her mother’s hipbone with the palm of her hand. “And I can’t do that when you and Dad are talking about work.”

 

“You’re right.” Mark said. He gave Margaret another peck on her cheek and then reached out for Vi’s hand. “Your mom and I can talk about work once you’re at school.”

 

“Bye Mama!” Vi gave Margaret another hug and then pulled Mark away. Margaret stood in the hallway, watching them disappear. This was her family. Though she’d gone through every level of hell to get them, she’d found that they were worth every sharp pain she had ever felt. She knew that her and Mark’s lives would never be stable, there was too much blood on their hands for that, but Vi’s life… she’d get a good one. Margaret and Mark would make sure of that.

 

Margaret entered her apartment and shut the door, locking the deadbolt. She knew Mark would be back in an hour, but she was still on edge. Hydra was still out there, and Margaret didn’t want to be caught off-guard.

 

She toed her shoes off at the door and pulled her hair out of its half-destroyed bun. Her dark reddish-brown hair tumbled down around her shoulders as her socked feet padded across the hall to the small kitchen where Vi’s cereal bowl was sitting beside the sink. The milk left in it was tainted rainbow, meaning that Mark had let Vi have Fruit Loops. Mark only let Vi have Fruit Loops on a school day when he was worried about something. Mark had definitely heard the news about SHIELD.

 

Margaret felt a wave of guilt wash over her as she poured out the rainbow milk. She and Mark both worked perilous jobs: Margaret had been an agent for one of the world’s most top-secret facilities, and Mark worked as a hit man, taking out high profile enemies of whoever hired him. Neither of them had a set work schedule. Neither of them could talk about their jobs in front of Vi. They both feared for the other’s life late at night when they were alone in their bed.

 

Margaret put the bowl into the dishwasher and moved to her bathroom. She stripped down to her underwear and took a good look at all the injuries she had sustained during the attack. Nothing too deadly, she thought. A good shower would clean off most of the bloodstains and bacteria that might be in the semi-open wounds.

 

Margaret started up the water and let it warm up for a few minutes. She stuck her hand under the spray to check that it was the right temperature before shedding her underwear and stepping under the spray.

 

It felt wonderful, even though the water stung when it hit her injuries. It was warm, relaxing, and an escape. Margaret was still on alert, in case someone got into the apartment while she was vulnerable, but she didn’t have to put on her agent face. There was no need to be intense at every moment, no need to constantly prove that she was worth her pay. The SHIELD agents had never really trusted her because of her training at Outré, and they had a good reason not to. Outré Academy trained petty criminals to become better criminals. They didn’t create loyal agents, they created assassins and mercenaries. They created real-life villains.

 

Margaret liked to think that what she did was good, but the fall of SHIELD had fucked with her sense of good and evil. SHIELD was supposed to be good, and Hydra was supposed to be evil. But SHIELD and Hydra were, for the most part, the same thing. Was there a good and evil side anymore? Or were there just two villains fighting it out to see who could pull the biggest weapon out of their pocket and destroy the most people?

 

The shower water began to turn cold, so Margaret quickly washed her hair and then turned the water off. She stepped out and grabbed a towel, wrapping herself in it. Her body was clean, but her mind was still a mess. She was tired of learning that the people she worked for were less than they called themselves. SHIELD had been hiding monsters. Outré Academy had been training them.

 

If Margaret couldn’t find something better to do with her skill set, she might go ask Secretary Barrish if she had an open spot in her protection detail. Margaret already knew all of the Secretary’s dirty secrets; there wouldn’t be any surprises there. Hopefully.

 

<<<<>>>> 

 

Margaret sat on the sofa, sipping coffee, when she heard a knock on the door. She sat the coffee down and picked up her Beretta Storm. Her finger was on the trigger as she moved silently to the door.

 

The person knocked again and Margaret kept her pace steady. No need to panic; it was most likely Mark. If it wasn’t, though, she’d still be ready for them.

 

She got to the door and looked through the peephole. It was Mark, and he was holding a to-go bag from Misha’s coffeehouse. Misha’s was the coffeehouse a few blocks away from Vi’s elementary school, and Mark and Margaret both enjoyed the food there.  Margaret put the safety back onto her Storm and tucked it into the waistband of her jeans. She unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. “You brought breakfast.”

 

“Of course I did.” Mark said, and handed her the to-go bag. He took a sip of his own coffee and kicked the door shut behind him. “By the way, Vi’s got a girl scout meeting tomorrow; she told me you have to take her since you’re back now.”

 

“Got it.” Margaret said, and opened the to-go bag. Inside was an apple cinnamon scone and a blueberry muffin. Margaret took out the scone and handed the bag back to Mark. The two of them walked together over to the sofa. Margaret took her pistol out of her waistband and set it down on the coffee table, then bit into her scone. It was still good.

 

Mark unwrapped his muffin, his dark blue eyes focused on Margaret. “So, how are you holding up?”

 

“I’m fine.” Margaret said. “A little unsettled, but I’ve dealt with worse. Besides, no one really liked me there that much anyway.”

 

“Didn’t you have an assignment, before all this shit hit the fan?” Mark asked, and then took a bite from his muffin. A few crumbs fell off of it and landed on the couch. Mark glared down at them like he couldn’t believe that a muffin wouldn’t cooperate with a trained assassin.

 

Margaret nodded. “I did. I just don’t know if I’m supposed to continue it or not. The man who assigned it to me is dead, and the agency who hired me is a pile of rubble now.”

 

“What’s the assignment?” Mark asked. Margaret told him the details, leaving out the reason why. She didn’t know, and she hoped Mark wouldn’t ask. He didn’t, but Margaret could see that he wanted to. They’d both been put on enough covert ops to know that when you weren’t given all the details, it was because the details were sketchy. The reasons were colluded. That’s what worried Margaret the most. She couldn’t trust that Fury hadn’t been asked to send Margaret after the Secretary on Hydra’s orders, or SHIELD’s. She didn’t know where the order had come from, so she didn’t know whether to follow through with it.

 

Mark leaned back, and draped his arm over the couch cushions. “I don’t know, Mar. The Secretary of State’s gotten a lot of hate, but I don’t know why SHIELD would bother protecting her. And for the kids… they’re just kids, aren’t they? No one would want to kill either of them.”

 

“I know, Mark.” Margaret said. “And that’s what bothers me.”

 

Mark ran his hand through her hair comfortingly. “You’ll figure it out.”

 

Margaret nodded. The two of them ate their breakfast in silence, only interrupted by Mark’s phone buzzing. He ignored it, even though Margaret had silently suggested he at least look to make sure it wasn’t anything important.

 

When they finished their coffee, Margaret leaned across the coffee table and grabbed the TV remote, turning it on. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to watch, she just knew she needed to watch something to keep her mind off of the past few days.

 

She flipped to the news channel. They were talking about the Triskelion, of course. Images of the helicarriers, of Captain Rogers, and of the hospital where all the injured agents were being treated flashed on the screen. The news anchor said something about someone named Natasha Romanoff giving a press conference. Something was said about arresting Captain Rogers and his accomplices, and Margaret scoffed.

 

“Something funny?” Mark appeared behind her.

 

Margaret shook her head. “Just ridiculous. They’re thinking that locking up Captain Rogers is a good idea in light of what’s happened.”

 

“Oh yeah, that would go over really well.” Mark rolled his eyes. “The guy’s a freaking American icon. I don’t care what he did; this country isn’t going to just let him be thrown away in a cell.”

 

Margaret figured that Mark was probably right about that. As long as the general public remembered Captain Rogers for what he did in the attack on New York two years ago and not what had happened in the capital two days ago, his freedom was secured. But Margaret also knew that public opinion could easily be swayed.

 

As the couple continued to watch the news, a second person rushed on screen and whispered something into the news lady’s ear. Her eyes widened comically and she asked, “Are you sure?”

 

The second person nodded. The woman turned to face her audience with a grief and horror stricken look on her face. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have something tragic to report.”

 

Mark’s phone buzzed again. Mark and Margaret exchanged looks, and Margaret grabbed her fiancé’s phone. She unlocked it and looked at the messages, both from Mark’s partner, Joan DeCaveras.

 

_Message: Mark if you/family are in DC get out. There’s radar saying that the place has been targeted._

 

“This just in, the Air Force One has been hit.” The news woman’s voice shook as she spoke. “The plane, carrying President Paul Garcetti and his detail, has crashed just off the coast of Staten Island. We’ll be going to reporters in that area for more information, but it appears that the attack on our capitol is not yet over…”

 

_Message: Anderson they took out POTUS. I know Johnson’s in with SoS, you need to pull her out. SoS and family are next targets. HYDRA, Anderson. This is not a drill._

 

Margaret set the phone down and turned to Mark. He nodded before she could even speak. “Do whatever you need to do. I’ll call Chassity and have her pull Vi out of school.”

 

“Thank you.” Margaret said. She didn’t care what Joan thought; Margaret had been assigned to protect Secretary Elaine Barrish and her family for a reason. She wasn’t going to abandon them just because the country was under duress and her life was at stake. Margaret’s life was always at stake. This was no different from any other Wednesday.


	2. Blood on my hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TJ wakes up somewhere unfamiliar. This is familiar. 
> 
> A mad scientist tries to kill him. This is not.

TJ was used to waking up in an unfamiliar place, though usually that place was a bedroom of sorts. This place looked like the psychopathic version of a doctor’s office. And TJ, he was the patient. He was strapped to a metal chair, his arms and legs held down by leather restraints. There was something in his mouth, keeping it open but making it impossible for TJ to make any noise of protest.

 

 _What the hell did I get into last night?_ He asked himself. He looked around the rest of the room, but nothing looked familiar. He was the only one in the room, and there were no sounds.

 

TJ didn’t feel hungover, or like he was coming down from a high. He actually felt surprisingly whole, and sober, and that freaked him out the most. The last thing he could remember was it being night. The eighth of October? Maybe. It was the night after Garcetti’s plane had gone down. TJ couldn’t really remember what day that was.

 

TJ had snuck out, just to get away from his family’s stress, and had disappeared to his room. He just needed to do a few lines, so that he could deal with everything. TJ hated himself for that; he wanted to recover, he wanted to get better, but he couldn’t. Every time he made any upward progress, some sort of shit hit the fan and he lost any sense of a support system. TJ couldn’t do this on his own, he knew that, but no one else seemed to realise it.

 

The door opened, and a team of lab coat clad people strode in. They were followed by six men dressed in black combat suits. That freaked TJ out the most. These people, whoever they were, were going to hurt him with science. And if they couldn’t hurt him with science, then they would hurt him with guns.

 

One of the scientists, an older man with greying hair, turned to the combatants. “Before you begin testing to see if the protocol was successful, my team would like to do some final assessments.”

 

“Whatever, Doc. Just make it quick.” The lead combatant growled. “You’ve still gotta wipe him before anyone realises we’ve got him.”

 

The doctor approached TJ. He took out a scalpel and showed it to TJ. He gave the younger man a comforting smile, and TJ pressed back against the chair. He knew resistance was futile, that this man was going to cut into him and slice him up no matter what he did to try and protest, but instincts were still instincts. TJ wasn’t too keen on living, but he didn’t want to die like  _this_.

 

“Mr. Hammond, I would appreciate it if you relaxed for me. It will make this procedure much easier on both of us.” The doctor said. He sounded soothing, but TJ wasn’t some dumb kid. He was a grown ass man and he knew when someone was playing him. This doctor guy? He was screwing with TJ, trying to give TJ some false sense of security.

 

The doctor’s mouth turned to a thin line. “Alright, Mr. Hammond, but this will most likely hurt a lot more, since you decided to not comply.”

 

And then the doctor took the scalpel and pressed it against TJ’s arm, leaving a long, deep cut along the pale flesh. TJ hissed in pain, grinding his teeth into the object in his mouth, but the doctor didn’t do anything. TJ hadn’t expected him to do anything, but still. Wasn’t there a little humanity left in this guy? Enough that he’d do more than slice TJ open without some kind of anesthetic? Maybe?

 

Three minutes passed, and the doctor let out a surprised, but pleased, noise. “It’s working!”

 

“There’s a scar, though.” Another one of the doctors pointed out. The first one looked annoyed at the commentary. “Of course there is scar tissue. It’s part of the natural healing process. But give it some time, and you’ll see that the asset is returned to pristine condition.”

 

 _Asset?_ TJ thought. _Is that what they’re turning me into?_

 

“So he’s healing like the others. So what?” The combatant growled again. “Get out of the way so I can see what happens when there’s a bullet in his head.”

 

TJ’s eyes widened. They weren’t keeping him alive! He was just a test, to see if something had worked. Part of TJ wasn’t even surprised; he’d never been important enough for anyone. Not his parents, not Reeves, not even the public once they realized he was just another sad, gay junkie story. Maybe death wouldn’t be that bad, even if it wasn’t from his own hands. Maybe he’d actually be relevant once he was gone.

 

TJ never got to find out what death felt like, because as the combatant raised his gun, the barrel pointing straight at TJ’s head, there was a series of muffled shouts and gunshots. The combatant lowered his weapon and whirled round. TJ could feel the rage radiating off of him. “What the hell is going on?!”

 

There wasn’t a response, but the sounds of the fight got louder. TJ’s head was leaned back slightly, so he couldn’t see the base of the door as two bodies fell down in front of it. The lead combatant let out a string of swears and strode away from TJ, his heavy boots thudding against the concrete floor as he walked. There were more gunshots, and then one of the scientists started screaming. “No! No, please, please, don’t kill me please!”

 

With a pained moan and the release of a bullet, the screaming scientist fell to the floor. TJ could see the shooter now. She was a young woman with long auburn hair tied up into the messiest bun TJ had ever seen in his life. There was a mess of burn scars on her face and what was exposed of her skin. Blood spatter covered her front, and she approached TJ and the doctor with the slightest limp. She’d been shot, but she wasn’t going to slow down.

 

TJ understood why everyone was terrified of this lady. TJ had spent most of his life in the presence of powerful woman, but this one was on another level altogether. She pulled out a tiny pistol and pointed it at the doctor. “Step away, Dr. Sotho. Thomas is under my protection, and I won’t let a monster like you operate on him without our consent.”

 

“You won’t get far with him.” The doctor said, but TJ could tell he was afraid. TJ was pretty sure that the scarred woman wanted him that way. “The asset is not as perfect as we wanted. You may take him home now, but like the others, he will realise that his true home is with Hydra.”

 

"Doctor, while I'm normally very good at keeping a diplomatic environment, people like you dissolve my patience impossibly fast." The woman pointed her new gun to the scientist's head. "So, if you don't mind, kindly say your tagline so that I can take Mr. Hammond to a secure location."

 

The scientist sneered. "If you already know what my  _tagline_  is, why do you need me to say it? Why not just kill me now while you have me wounded and at your mercy?"

 

"Because your tagline is ironic." The woman said, her face growing less and less expressive with every second. "I've watched so many arrogant people like you fall to ashes because they believed themselves or their groups to be immortal. Take it from someone who's walked alongside death for a while, Doctor: you are not immortal, no matter how hard you try to change that fact."

 

The scientist laughed. "You think you can beat Hydra? You, the unassisted one-woman team? You're wrong. You've already lost. Mr. Hammond is not the only one like the Asset. You see, if you cut off one head--"

 

A shot rang out through the room as the woman put a bullet through the man's head. He fell down on her feet and she kicked him to the side.  "Then two more will take its place. I know how your saying goes."

 

She turned to TJ as she placed the pistol into her waistband. TJ just stared at her, wide-eyed and a bit impressed. TJ didn’t know where she had come from, who she was, or who she worked for, but he knew she was a complete badass. Still, TJ had a lot of questions for this woman, and he’d start asking them as soon as he got out of these restrains. Assuming, of course, that the scarred woman in front of him was going to free him.

 

“These aren’t the first Hydra agents I’ve had to take down this week, Mr. Hammond.” The woman said as she pulled a knife out and cut through the restraints on TJ’s arms and legs. TJ reached up with his own hand and removed the restraint from his mouth. Once he was free, he stood up, shaking slightly. How long had he been in that chair? He turned to face his saviour, and she slowly raised her hands to show that she was unarmed and not going to hurt him any more than he’d already been hurt. “My name, in case you were wondering, is Margaret Johnson. I’m a former SHIELD agent, trained through Outre Academy and the Secret Service. I’m here to protect you from anyone who wants to hurt you, Mr. Hammond, even yourself.”

 

“I don’t need your help.” TJ said bitterly, even though he knew that was a lie. He did need Margaret’s help, the past few minutes had proved that, but he didn’t want her to become yet another fixture in his life who saw him as nothing but an issue that needed to be resolved. He had enough of those already.

 

TJ moved forward, ready to shove past Margaret Johnson and figure his own way home (if he even decided to go home), but she stopped him. She put her arm out, blocking TJ’s path. He considered pushing her arm away, but the look on Margaret’s burned face and the shake of her head told TJ that while she didn’t want to force TJ into coming with her, she would do it if he continued resisting.  So TJ stepped back, sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. It needed to be washed, which meant he had been in the chair for longer than he thought. He glared at Margaret. “Fine, I’ll play along. But you tell me everything. Whatever’s happening, it’s happening to me too, and I deserve to know what the hell is going on.”

 

Margaret Johnson nodded. “I promise you, you’ll get all the details you want. After we get to the safe house. I’m not going to explain everything over a pile of dead bodies.”

 

“Okay, but where is the safe house?” TJ asked, because he still didn’t really know where he was. Or exactly how long he’d been unconscious, for that matter.

 

“I’ll tell you when we get there, but it’s going to take a plane trip or two.” Margaret grabbed TJ’s forearm and dragged him out of the room. He didn’t have time to ask what she meant by that, and it was only after he stepped in a puddle of some guys blood that he realized that he wasn’t wearing shoes any more. He just had socks and his skinny jeans from the last time he had been conscious. No shirt at all, which was mildly embarrassing. “You do realise I’m half-naked, right?”

 

“Yes.” Margaret stopped and dropped her bag from her shoulders. She opened it and pulled out a t-shirt with some late 90s punk band album on it and handed the thing to TJ. “Put it on quickly, we have to get out of here before reinforcements get here.”

 

TJ threw the shirt over his head. “You have any shoes in there?”

 

“Yes,” Margaret tossed a pair of ratty sneakers at him. He put them on quickly. Once he was done, Margaret grabbed him again and they continued their path through the piles of bodies. TJ had never seen so many dead things in one place, and he wondered, out loud, how many people Margaret had had to kill to get to him.

 

“A lot, but not everyone in the building. Thus, the chance of us encountering reinforcements is relatively high.” Margaret didn’t stop, didn’t slow down whatsoever whenever a body got in her way. She either stepped over it of kicked it off to the side to make a path towards their exit. Not that TJ could actually see any kind of exit, but apparently Margaret had left behind a breadcrumb trail (made of bodies) to keep them from getting lost in this facility. Because it was more than a simple doctor’s office with an operating chair, or anywhere TJ ever planned to go to ever again. Margaret seemed to notice that TJ was tense, and so she kept talking. “There are more people in this building, Mr. Hammond, and they would like nothing more to see me dead and you back in that chair. That means that we have to keep moving for now, and we can’t stop until we get somewhere that I know is safe. Do you understand me, Mr. Hammond?”

 

TJ was pretty sure he understood that he and this woman had to keep moving, but he didn’t know anything else, and that unsettled him. So he didn’t answer. He just locked his eyes on something not dead and swallowed back whatever was threatening to come up his throat. TJ wasn’t sure if it would be a shitload of questions that Margaret couldn’t answer until a later time of if it would be last night’s dinner (what little he’d been able to choke down, anyway), but he knew that neither was optimal at the moment. So he just kept his mouth shut.

 

“Thomas, do you understand?” Margaret Johnson asked him, and even though she didn’t slow down or look back at him, TJ could tell that she was, in that moment, terrified that she was going to lose him mentally. She wasn’t losing him; for the first time in forever TJ was completely aware of his surroundings, like the world had lost its usual blurry edge and now everything was in bright, colourful High-Def. TJ nodded and breathed out his answer. “Yeah. I understand.”

 

“Good. Now, don’t do anything stupid when I open this door.” Margaret said as they approached a set of metallic doors. The lock had already been cut, but that didn’t stop Margaret from drop-kicking the door open at the same time that she let go of TJ’s arm, grabbed one of her guns, and started firing at the guards on the other side of the door. TJ kept close to her, because she seemed to know what the fuck she was doing and, more importantly, what was going on. TJ had no clue and figured that if he lost Margaret then he’d either end up dead, or back in the chair. And the chair seemed worse. While TJ wasn’t completely against death and not breathing ever again, he  _was_ against being tested as some kind of human lab rat.

 

But TJ didn’t really have to worry about that, because Margaret was kicking some serious ass. She wasn’t using a gun anymore, instead she was taking knives from various holsters on her body and hurling them into the attackers’ chests or necks or heads. She’d then pull the knife out and throw it again and again and again. Margaret could have been using two different knives or she could have been using twenty; TJ wouldn’t have spotted the difference. TJ could, however, tell that Margaret was the _other_ kind of terrifying: the slice shit up without breaking a sweat or chipping a nail kind.

 

TJ hope that once this was over and Hydra or whoever had kidnapped him was no longer a threat, Margaret would stick around and throw knives into any of the asshole reporters who made TJ’s and his family’s lives living hell. That would solve some of TJ’s problems. Not all of them, but at least his family would never have to look at him like he was a mistake ever again, just because some reporter got wind of his latest fuck-up and decided to leak it to the world.

 

The last man fell and hit the ground between TJ and Margaret with a thud. Margaret pulled her knife from between his eyes and wiped the blade on her pants. She put it away, then grabbed TJ’s arm and took off as though she hadn’t just killed a bunch of guys with a handful of knives.

 

“Where’d you learn that?” TJ asked as they got near a real exit. There were no more guards, so Margaret was able to lead him out to her car, an inconspicuous silver BMW, without any more mass killings.

 

“That’s classified, Mr. Hammond.” Margaret said automatically as she opened TJ’s door and motioned for him to get in. TJ didn’t move. He knew that they needed to get the hell out of this area, but Margaret had promised to answer all of his questions truthfully, and explain everything. She seemed to realise what was keeping TJ from getting into the car, and sighed dramatically, like she couldn’t believe she’d been the one assigned to protect TJ Hammond, instead of his generally no-nonsense brother who would actually do what he was told. Margaret put a hand on her hip. “The knife thing was something I learned in Nevada, when my fiancé and I took down three casinos in one night. The door kick and machine gun thing came from my first stunt in DC, when a terrorist group thought that they could take out my father without having to deal with me.”

 

She then reached up, grabbed TJ’s head, and pushed him down into the passenger seat. As she closed the door, she said, “I know you have more questions, but can you please wait until we get to the airport?”


	3. Time goes by (but you're still here)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the lack of updating; there wasn't a lot of availiable wifi while I was on my choir tour. I have now returned to the wifi so expect some more updates.

The first time Margaret heard the name Hammond, she was nine years old and her father had just lost the presidential election. She heard him and her mother talking about the opponent, a man named Bud Hammond, and how he was the exact opposite of what this country needed.

 

Margaret hadn’t really understood what her father had meant in December of 1996. She did, however, understand what he meant when he said that Thomas Hammond’s homosexuality was going to make Bud Hammond lose his reelection. Margaret was eleven when Thomas Hammond, one of Bud’s sons, came out as gay. Margaret knew because one of her friends, Claire Hudgens, had brought in her mother’s gossip magazine and it had had an article about the gay son of a president.

 

Margaret was told, by her parents, that Thomas coming out as gay was the best thing that could happen to them. It meant that her father was sure to get the presidency.

 

Of course, her father wasn’t chosen to be on the presidential ticket in 2000, so he never got the chance. Bradley Johnson instead settled into the position of Speaker of the House, and Margaret finished junior high school with two friends.

 

It was the summer before she was supposed to go to high school that she heard about Thomas Hammond’s drug issues. She’d been in Washington with her mother, and had somehow managed to convince Jackie that she could survive the city on her own for a few hours. Margaret had underestimated her knowledge of DC, and had wound up outside one of the skeevier club districts at around midnight that night.

 

She was smart enough to know to hide in an alleyway when a series of paparazzi streamed past, all of them shouting at each other. Margaret was going to be in so much trouble when she finally found her way home; the last thing she needed was for her face to end up on a magazine cover.

 

Even though Margaret’s father wasn’t the biggest name in politics, his family was still relevant enough to make headlines if they did something stupid.

 

Perhaps Margaret’s definition of stupid varied from the rest of the world, because she decided, after a few more moments of standing in the dark, to follow the cameras and see who they were taking down tonight. So she stepped back out onto the streets, and moved quickly. She kept her head down, knowing that if she looked at someone the wrong way they’d think her a prostitute, and soon caught up with the paparazzi.

 

There were only four left by this point, and they were trying to get into a loud club that smelled like expensive alcohol and cigarettes. The bouncer, of course, was adamantly refusing their entrance. Margaret stood to the side and watched. One of the photographers got irritated and threw something at the bouncer. He didn’t react, but told them to get the hell out.

 

Margaret heard some commotion from around the corner, and leaned back to see what was going on over there.

 

In the dim flashing lights provided by the open back door, Margaret could see two figures. One was turned more towards her, and he had a lazy grin on his face. The other one looked tense, and was shouting at the grinner. Margaret wondered what was wrong, but she didn’t dare approach them. She knew what men were like when they were angry, or when they were happy. Men were violent, more likely to hurt a girl like her when it was dark outside and no one could see anything.

 

So she stayed back, and watched them. The grinning man’s grin began to fade away, and the angry man’s shoulders tightened. And then the grinning man wasn’t grinning any more. He was shouting, loud enough that Margaret could make out his words over the angry paparazzi. “You don’t get it! You don’t know what it’s like for me! You don’t know what I have to deal with, Dougie, so stop pretending that you do!”

 

Dougie, the one facing away from Margaret, grabbed the man he was arguing with, and pulled him away from the door. For some reason, Margaret thought they were going to fight. For some reason, she thought that she was strong enough to stop them.

 

So she sprinted forward, and shouted, “No! Let him go!”

 

She didn’t know who she was screaming at, but her words worked, because Dougie let go and the other man stumbled away, nearly falling to the ground. Dougie stared at Margaret, not sure what to make of her. Margaret took a deep breath; she’d already made her presence known, so she had to keep up her confident exterior. She curled her fists at her sides. “What exactly are you two doing?”

 

“Dougie’s being an asshole.” The second man said. He was now leaning heavily against a stack of wooden crates, and Margaret could smell the alcohol on him. He was drunk. This was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.

 

Dougie turned his glare to the second man. “Shut up, TJ.”

 

“Well, you are.” The second man, TJ, muttered. “I’m just trying to have some fun for once in my life, and you go and ruin it with the Goddamn stick up your ass.”

 

“You were doing coke off some guy’s abs and the paps were about to burst in and get pictures, TJ! Sorry for trying to keep you from fucking up our family’s image, again!” Dougie’s rage had picked up again, and Margaret had a feeling that he wasn’t completely sober either. And if they were the target of the paparazzi, then that meant they were important. Somehow. If Margaret could figure out who they were, then maybe she could help them get out without anyone noticing.

 

TJ rolled his eyes. “Wow, way to be a supportive brother. Not like you weren’t in there getting drunk off your ass too.”

 

Dougie looked like he wanted to punch something. Margaret decided to step forward then, before they actually threw any punches. “Guys, I don’t know the full story but, um, you both seem like you’re being assholes, so… maybe don’t fight about it?”

 

Margaret winced at the uncertainty in her voice. She wasn’t as good at acting confident as she had thought. Maybe following her father into politics wouldn’t be the best idea ever. Maybe trying to diffuse the situation between TJ and Dougie wasn’t a good idea at all.

 

“Wasn’t planning to fight.” TJ said. “Not really my thing. ‘Cording to everyone, all I do is fuck. And screw up the family image, if you ask my better brother.”

 

Margaret didn’t know what it was like having a sibling, what with her being an only child, but if this was the result of having more than one child in a family, Margaret was glad her parents had decided to stop having kids after her. The bitterness in TJ’s voice told Margaret that, whoever he was, he hadn’t felt loved in a long time. Margaret had never been there, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t sympathise with him.

 

She tugged at her shirt sleeve. “Sorry?”

 

“Look, it’s great that you’re trying to play the hero, but I just need to get TJ home.” Dougie said. He sounded tired, and annoyed. TJ misbehaving must have been a regular occurrence. Margaret also felt bad for Dougie. Having to constantly keep track of someone else seemed ridiculously tiring. Margaret wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

 

Margaret nodded. “I understand. I need to get home too, but there are some camera people outside the entrance to… this place. So… we, uh, we might need to get out some other way.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah.” Dougie nodded, and Margaret thought he had to be pretty drunk to think that letting a fourteen year old lead him through a city at night was a good plan. But, it seemed to be the only plan. Margaret took a deep breath. These two men, whoever they were, needed her help to get them home without the paparazzi noticing that they were gone. She could do that. She knew, somewhat, how this city was laid out. She’d been here on multiple occasions with her parents, so she knew the basic places, and she had enough money for either a taxi or the Metro, whichever was needed.  She just needed to get them all out of this part of DC. It wasn’t her usual turf.

 

Margaret stepped forward, between the two brothers. “I’m Margaret, by the way. In case you want someone to thank when you get out of this mess.”

 

“There’s no getting out of the mess I’m in.” Margaret heard TJ mutter as she walked past him. She paused and looked back, not sure if she had heard him correctly. He didn’t even seem to notice that she was standing there. He was too busy focusing on his feet, and getting them to move when he wanted them to move.

 

The three managed to make it to the other end of the side alley without any issue. Once they were on the edge of the street, Margaret turned to her two new companions. “So, um, where do you two live, again?”

 

“Just get us somewhere out of the way so that I can call our driver.” Dougie said. Margaret nodded. She understood that Dougie didn’t want to give his address out to just anyone, since he was relatively well known (enough that the paps cared, but not enough that Margaret could recognise him in the dark). Margaret wouldn’t have given her actual address away either, if she had been in Dougie and TJ’s position.

 

The three of them settled into a small waffle place that was open 24 hours. Dougie fished a few bills from his wallet and ordered himself some coffee, while TJ sat down low in the booth across from his brother. He stared intently at the wall, his previously care-free mood now gone as Dougie called their driver and told the driver where they were. Before he hung up, Dougie glanced over at Margaret, “Do you want us to get you home too, or what?”

 

“I’ll be fine on my own.” Margaret said, exuding more confidence than she felt. “Thanks, though, for the offer.”

 

“You should probably take it.” TJ muttered. Margaret turned to him (he was sitting on her left, with Dougie across from them both), surprised at his comment. TJ hadn’t shown any interest in leaving the club, or the streets, until now, and he had barely even considered Margaret’s thoughts on the matter. Margaret supposed that it was the coke and the alcohol, which were, if Margaret recalled her health classes correctly, two things that should never be mixed.

 

Margaret shoved her hands under her legs, making herself smaller out of nervousness. “Why? I don’t even know you guys.”

 

“You will tomorrow.” TJ said, but it didn’t sound threatening. It just sounded defeated, like Margaret’s and Dougie’s attempts to keep him from getting caught on camera were all for nothing. Margaret hated that TJ felt like that, and she wished that there was something she could do to keep both of these men safe from the paparazzi. She knew what it was like to be under the light of the cameras; when her father had run for president, every reporter around had hounded her and her mother about everything, all the time. Being in the spotlight sucked.

 

But before Margaret could ask TJ what he meant, the waitress returned with Dougie’s coffee. He took it with a smile, and the waitress gave the three of them a confused look before she turned and went back to her work. Margaret could understand her confusion. What good reason did three famous young people have for hanging out in a rundown breakfast place at one in the morning? None, but there they were.

 

Twenty minutes later, TJ and Dougie’s driver showed up, and Margaret, deciding to risk it and get into a car with two inebriated men that she didn’t know well, joined them. They rode in silence, as the driver had a GPS and didn’t need Margaret’s help with getting back to her hotel. As it was, she and the two brothers had only been about five minutes away from the place. Margaret, technically, could have walked.

 

She thanked the driver for the ride, and said goodbye to Dougie and TJ. She also wished them good luck, because she thought that they might need it. They both responded with sarcastic laughter, both knowing that they were beyond luck’s help. Margaret wasn’t offended. She just pitied them. She also, in the dark corners of her mind, wondered if that was the path she was going to go down.

 

She’d seen how young they looked when they were all in the waffle place. They couldn’t have been much older than her, maybe four or five years, but they also looked so old. Like the world had taken them and wrung the childhood out of them before they could really have one. Margaret wondered if she was like that too, if she was going to lose her childhood and her freedom to the public spotlight. She hoped not. She’d do anything not to end up looking that sad and stressed out in five years. Anything at all, even if it meant leaving her parents behind forever.

 

As soon as she entered the hotel, she heard her mother shout her name. Margaret turned, startled, and saw Jackie Johnson standing at the top of the grand staircase, dressed in her immaculate bathrobe and looking like she could murder someone with her mind.

 

“Margaret, where have you been? Your father and I were so worried about you!” Jackie proceeded down the stairs, her anger fading to relief as she became eye level with her daughter. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

 

“Sorry, Mom.” Margaret said, her head bowed. “I got lost, and then I… well, I met two guys who were running from the paparazzi, and I had to help them get home without getting on the front page of some trashy gossip magazine.”

 

Jackie sighed, a tired smile on her face. “Oh Margaret, always the heroine. You’ll make a good president one day, just like your father will, soon.”

 

“Thanks mom.” Margaret said. She knew that she wasn’t planning on becoming the president, even though her parents both wanted her to go into politics. The ruthless, cut-throat atmosphere wasn’t her thing. She felt she’d do better somewhere else, somewhere that actually helped the people, instead of just saying grand words and then stepping on them.

 

But Margaret didn’t tell her mother that. She didn’t tell her mother the names of the two men she had helped, because there was a small part of her that realised, at the dead of night as she followed her mother up to their hotel room, that those two men might have been the Hammond brothers. And if they were, well, Margaret had just helped the enemy. Her parents would never forgive her for that.

 

Margaret couldn’t see TJ and Dougie as an enemy. They were just two young guys, trying to figure out what the hell they were supposed to do in their lives while their parents ran around acting like they were in charge of the country. Margaret didn’t see either of the boys (she had a hard time calling them men once she knew who they were) as an enemy a week later, when a story about TJ’s cocaine addiction hit the headlines and everyone stopped seeing him as someone to have sex with. They now just saw him as another cautionary tale, another reason why gay kids shouldn’t stay gay.

 

Margaret wished more than anything that she could find them again, and do something. She didn’t know what she would do, what she _could_ do, for TJ and Dougie and their tragic lives, but she never found them. They were still in DC, when they weren’t in school, and Margaret’s father was still keeping his family in their estate in Delaware while he worked in the capitol.

 

And then in February, a man shot the president and the vice president, and Margaret stood beside her mother as her father was sworn in. It seemed like so much time had passed since Margaret helped TJ and Dougie get away from the press that night in DC, but it had only been a year and a half. In that time, Margaret had been burned, kidnapped, shot at, and had learned the darker side of the world.

 

She should have expected to see the Hammond family there in the crowds. What she didn’t expect was how different TJ and Dougie looked from the versions she remembered. She knew now that memories changed with time, but she didn’t think they could change this much. Dougie looked older, more mature, with none of the childlike features he had had a year and a half ago. TJ just looked like death rolled over.

 

And with the way Dougie and Mrs. Hammond kept looking over at TJ with worry on their faces, Margaret was pretty sure that TJ wasn’t sober.

 

Margaret couldn’t really pin down the day she decided that she’d use her training at Outré to protect the Hammond family (TJ especially), but if she had to guess, she’d say that it was probably on the same day her father got inaugurated. Because she knew, from that day forward, just how painful being a First Child was. And when Margaret heard that Elaine Hammond (later Elaine Barrish) was planning to get back into the White House, she knew that someone had to be there for those boys.

 

And so when Elaine, her mother, and her two sons showed up under the list of Phoenix Protocol Selections, Margaret ran up to Fury’s office. She didn’t knock, she just slammed the door open, file folder in hand, and flew to his desk. There was no panic in her face, just a look of expectations. This was going to be her mission, whether Fury agreed to it or not. She dropped the file onto his desk and he looked up at her. She looked down at him. “Director Fury, I have reason to believe that the Secretary of State and her family are in danger. I would like to arrange a team of agents to protect them, and I would like to be in charge.”

 

Fury gave Margaret his version of a smile. “I was wondering when you were going to ask. You have my permission, Agent Johnson. Go back to Washington.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick flash back to give a bit of insight on TJ and Margaret and how they work together. 
> 
> If there's anything you want to know, come find me on tumblr (the--renegade--angels.tumblr.com). I'm willing to answer everything.


	4. The Past Will Haunt You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to TJ and Margaret in the present time. They're going somewhere safe for a while, because the United States has gone to shit and Hydra isn't quite dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for mentions of rape, slut shaming, a light mention of suicide/self-harm in this one. None of them are major but I don't want to trigger anyone.

TJ was right when he thought that he’d been out for a while. He’d been out for over two days, and the sun was beginning to rise on the third day when he and Margaret stepped out of the car at the London airport. TJ wasn’t sure how his kidnappers had managed to move him all the way across the Atlantic ocean without anyone noticing, but they hadn’t been completely successful. Margaret had noticed. TJ wasn’t completely alone in this whirlwind. That was a good thing. He was pretty sure that if Margaret hadn’t been there, he’d be dead, brain-washed, or panicking.

 

As it was, she was a silent presence beside him as they walked through the parking lot. Margaret had given TJ a duffel bag and told him that there were enough clothes in there to cover him for a few days. She’d then pulled a set of passports from her purse and handed one of them to him. “Until my people can clear this up, you need to use this identity. Thomas James Hammond can’t be seen, or tracked, going anywhere, do you understand?”

 

“Completely.” TJ had nodded, and shoved the passport into the pocket of the hoodie he’d pulled out of his duffel. It had the name of a college TJ had never heard of on it, but it fit and it was warm. That was all TJ really cared about, at that moment.

 

They went through the airport quickly, TJ letting Margaret take the lead. At one point, she yanked him into an embrace and pretended to kiss him. TJ stood completely still, not sure what the fuck was happening, until Margaret removed her hand from the side of his face and stood back. She smirked at the startled expression on his face. “Sorry. Our cover was going to be blown. Had to improvise.”

 

“Next time, can I get a warning?” TJ asked. “I’m all for pretending to make out with beautiful women, but still.”

 

Margaret rolled her eyes. “I’m engaged, and so far out of your league that we’re actually playing different sports. And besides, my fiancé and I are in similar lines of work. So don’t piss him off.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” TJ said, and then they continued on their way. They conversed a little as they walked, mostly Margaret explaining her thought processes to TJ in bits and pieces, but they both returned to a comfortable, if not forced, silence when they got to the gate. Margaret’s deep blue eyes darted around the crowded area, zoning in on two empty seats near the entrance to the plane. She grabbed TJ by his elbow and dragged him over.

 

They sat there until first class was called to board, and then mingled in with the other passengers. Margaret let TJ go a few people ahead of her, saying something about keeping themselves separated so to not draw attention. TJ wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, since he was kind of a target for some secret organisation that wanted to use him as a science experiment. TJ wasn’t a big fan of acting as a science experiment.

 

He gave the flight attendant one of his photography smiles, and handed her his fake passport. She stared down at it, then up at TJ. Her eyes narrowed slightly, like she wasn’t sure if he was really who his ID said he was, and TJ did his best to not get nervous. During the drive to the airport, Margaret had warned TJ that the more nervous he appeared about presenting his identification, the more likely the attendants were to pull him off to the side and look into his character’s background. And when they did, they wouldn’t find much, because there wouldn’t be much to find.

 

But eventually the flight attendant smiled and handed TJ his passport back. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Gordon. Enjoy your flight.”

 

TJ managed to thank her before he slipped past and nearly ran down to the plane. He took a calming breath before he stepped into the thing, and then focused on finding his seat. 5A, that would be a window seat. He wondered if Margaret had done that on purpose, and supposed that she had. If TJ was in the window seat, then any attackers would have to go through Margaret to get to him.

 

Everything that woman did was done to protect him, it seemed.

 

Margaret joined him a moment later, and gave him a small smile. He managed to return it, despite how nervous he was getting. Margaret slid her purse under her seat. As she sat back up, TJ saw a flash of metal beneath her fingers. His eyes widened. “Is that a knife?”

 

“Yes, Mr. Hammond.” Margaret said, dead-pan. “I’m registered to carry a weapon where ever I want. Even though SHIELD is underground now, that doesn’t mean my other affiliations have to go with it. And besides, wouldn’t you rather I have other options besides my hands to protect you with?”

 

“True, but still. It’s a little disconcerting seeing someone with a knife on an airplane.” TJ said.

 

“Mr. Hammond, less than three hours ago, I rescued you from a Hydra facility. Had I been any later, I would have been bringing two weapons onto this plane: this knife, and you.”

 

“Why did Hydra want me, anyway?” TJ asked. He knew that he and the Winter Soldier, a Hydra asset and former Sargent James Barnes, looked a lot alike. They looked enough alike that when he had been in eighth grade, and his school had put on a reenaction of the Captain America story, TJ had been cast as the Captain’s best friend. TJ had done the role pretty well, except for the accent. His Brooklyn accent sucked, as Doug had told him non-stop for the months after the performance.

 

What made the play memorable was that the guy playing Captain America had asked TJ to be his boyfriend on the opening night, and TJ had said yes. TJ was sure that all the pro-gay Cap fanatics had marked that event down as a win, but really, he had just been glad that Ethan had wanted to kiss him. TJ had, up until the opening night of the Captain America performance, thought that he was weird for wanting to kiss another boy.

 

But that was years ago, and now TJ was on a plane, running from a Nazi terrorist organisation. And there was a badass woman beside him explaining it all.

 

Margaret’s face was blank as she spoke. “After Dr. Erskine successfully used the super-soldier serum on Captain Rogers, there were a lot of other people who wanted their own version of it. Hydra was one of them, and they used it to create the Winter Soldier. However, a few countries over in Russia, a group known as the Red Room was recruiting any and all scientists with communist sympathies in hopes that one of them would be able to make another serum. One of the scientists came up with something that was later dubbed the Phoenix Protocol. Unlike the super-soldier serum and the Winter Soldier formula, the Phoenix Protocol did not dramatically increase the user’s strength. Instead, it enhanced their genetics.”

 

TJ raised an eyebrow. “Meaning what?”

 

“Meaning that, if a Phoenix Protocol subject was injured or killed in a way that did not separate their limbs from their body, the disconnected cells and fibres would immediately start regrowing and rebuilding.” Margaret said. “Three minutes to heal any wound, then four more for the scar tissue to disappear. Fortunately, the scientist who created the Protocol wasn’t a fan of how it was being used, and so he destroyed all the information on it.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Unfortunately, the Protocol had already been calibrated to the DNA of Sargent Barnes and a young agent named Natalia Romanova. You might know her as the Black Widow.” Margaret said. She didn’t sound at all put off by the fact that TJ was probably part of some weird Soviet plan to create a bunch of mindless, immortal killers. Margaret glanced back over her shoulder at the rest of the plane, then turned to TJ again. “Most of the people at SHIELD didn’t believe the Phoenix Protocol theory, but I did. After all, I met the man who created it.”

 

“And SHIELD let you in on this, even though you’re friends with the enemy?” TJ raised an eyebrow. No wonder SHIELD hadn’t noticed that another organisation was growing within them; if they thought that an agent with ties to the Red Room was a good person to put on TJ’s family’s protection detail, then they probably weren’t as smart as everyone once thought them to be.

 

But Margaret shook her head. “First of all, no one knows about that connection. Calix prefers it that way. Secondly, I didn’t get picked for this. I had to beg Fury to let me have this job, and even then, all of the other people on my team thought there was something off about me. It’s my background at Outré, really. No one trusts an Outré agent who was trained in the early two-thousands. That time was a bad era to be associated with Outré Academy… not like there’s ever really been a good time to be associated with that school, but, you know…”

 

“I guess.” TJ shrugged. Margaret had a bad past; TJ could relate to that. Sure, her past probably involved more killing and less drugs, but it was just as full of bad decisions.

 

“I also wanted to do this because I know what it’s like to be in your position.” Margaret said offhandedly. TJ laughed, but it was cold, and false. No one really knew what it was like for him: he was a cautionary tale, a series of unfortunate events, a sad gay junkie, a mistake. Margaret knew what she was doing with herself. TJ had been the token gay drug addict for so long that he wasn’t sure there was anything left of his personality to fall back on. He shook his head. “No you don’t. _You’re_ not a fucking joke.”

 

“No, not anymore.” Margaret’s voice was quieter now, so TJ had to lean in to hear her. She was staring at the front of the plane now, so focused on checking the passengers for any signs of danger that she barely noticed TJ leaning in. “I hated when my father was president. The things they wrote about me then… they weren’t true, but they sure as hell felt like they were. And they were a constant reminder of the time when I couldn’t save myself, when I was weak and trapped and… and then I saw your mother campaigning for president and I knew that you’d be thrown back into the spotlight and I hated that. You’d already been in the fishbowl once. There was no need for your mother to drag you back in just when you were finally recovering.”

 

TJ just stared at her. She was a First Child at some point in her life, that much was obvious, but to whom?

 

_Bradley Johnson._

 

And then TJ recognised her. He remembered the shy, smiling girl standing by her mother and father as her father campaigned, and the girl who had ran down an alley screaming for him and Doug to stop fighting, and the girl who had come home covered in burn scars to stand behind her father as he solemnly took the oath.

 

And then he recognised her again. He remembered her face (her swollen stomach) all over the magazines that one time he’d remembered to restock his fridge at two in the morning. He remembered the stories that she’d been held prisoner in Cambodia, or Thailand, or somewhere in southeast Asia, and that her kidnappers had raped her. He remembered that there had been others who thought that the rape story was a cover-up, that she and her boyfriend, some lanky, scarred Mexican kid, had been fooling around and he’d knocked up the president’s daughter.

 

The woman sitting beside him on a plane had been through hell, more hell than TJ knew about (or would probably ever know), and yet she still wanted to save him.

 

TJ didn’t think he could feel more guilty about wanting to quit life then he did then. It wasn’t some kind of miracle recovery that he felt then, he wasn’t completely cured of all his issues. The world didn’t melt away and he and Margaret didn’t fall into each other’s arms with tears streaming down their face, confessing their pains and their trials and how much they just needed to be loved. But TJ felt something inside of himself shift. There was a part of him that felt like surviving. Not just this escape from Hydra, but life in general. 

 

There was a part of TJ who wanted to protect Margaret just as much as Margaret wanted to protect TJ. And that’s why, when the flight attendants pulled a pair of machine guns from under their food carts and started firing, he grabbed Margaret and threw them both to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we get into the epic spy violence. 
> 
> (PS if you want to know what Margaret and the other Outre nerds fight like then go watch Kingsman: The Secret Service because that shit is next level insane also a good movie 11/10 would recommend.


	5. Night Life/In the Fast Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TJ meets a prostitute. Emily the grocery store owner doesn't get paid enough for this shit.

TJ hadn’t spent a whole night in his own apartment in two weeks, so when he finally got home at 2 AM on a Wednesday, he found the place looking rather abandoned and sad. And TJ was hungry (and mabe hoping for some fridge vodka), so he addressed his fridge first. There was a half of a loaf of bread, an unopened water bottle, and an almost empty bottle of vodka. TJ grabbed the bottle and drank from it, then threw out the bread because it was probably stale anyway.

 

There wasn’t any real food, and there wasn’t enough alcohol to satisfy him, so TJ left. He decided to go to the 24-hour store two blocks away from his apartment. He grabbed his wallet from a pair of pants he had worn the night before and left the bottle of vodka on the table on his way out.

 

TJ wasn’t the only one who apparently needed to stock up on supplies at two in the morning. There were two women with sparkly, glittery, gold tops and highlighted hair. They were drunk as well, giggling and stumbling about the store. There was also a grizzled old man staring at the cereals like they were the only relevant things in his life.

 

TJ grabbed a cart, because he was pretty sure he was going to fall over if he didn’t have something to hold on to. He moved through the store slowly, grabbing things that looked important. He ended up with:

  *   Two bottles of cheap wine
  *   A bottle of Skyy vodka
  *   A dozen eggs
  *   Two packs of gummi worms
  *   Six green apples and the one yellow pear that had fallen into the apple bin
  *   A handful of Clif bars
  *   A bottle of strawberry shampoo
  *   Raisins
  *   And a jar of pickles



 

TJ ended up in line behind the two girls and a young fat man who had snuck in while TJ had been meandering around. The cashier looked like she could never get paid enough to do this job. Her nametag read _Emily_ and her thick blonde hair was braided over her shoulder.

 

The women wanted to buy cigarettes, but they couldn’t decide which brand they wanted. While they loudly discussed their options, the man in front of TJ opened up his bad of powdered donuts and started munching on them. TJ stared at the magazines on the display and tried to read them through his vodka and E induced haze. One of them had a picture of two teenagers. The girl was pregnant and the boy was glaring at the person taking his picture.

 

“Shame, isn’t it?” A drawling voice said from beside TJ. He turned and saw a prostitute leaning against the conveyer belt. She smacked on a piece of gum. She had a tube of lipstick and a bag of lemons in her hand. “President’s daughter gets kidnapped and raped; everyone thinks she’d just a lying _slut_. Victim blaming at its finest, ya know?”

 

“White house is the worst.” TJ slurred. The prostitute nodded. “Don’t we know it. Fucking old-ass white dudes, they all think they know what this country needs. Country really needs better parents and less old-ass white dudes.”

 

TJ laughed at that. Really laughed. He was high as fuck and a little drunk off his ass, but still. It felt great to be able to laugh at something funny, instead of just something he was supposed to find funny. He grabbed the magazine from the rack and dropped it on top of the eggs. He turned to the prostitute. “We need to hang out more.”

 

“Sure kid.” The prostitute gave him a smile. “Any time you need a talk, you’ll know where to find me. Two AM, corner store. Every night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise that this is short, but please don't yell at me. The next one will be longer I promise.


	6. Familial Ties and Intertnational Spies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margaret Johnson is not the kind of woman who you should mess with. TJ Hammond is always willing to die, apparently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the sake of fiction, lets pretend that terrorists actually kill people before taking a plane down. Also pretend that I know things about planes. Because I don't actually.

Margaret was shoved to the floor of the plane, TJ on top of her. She twisted her head around and glared at him. He wasn’t supposed to be protecting her. It was supposed to be the other way around, and TJ knew it. That didn’t mean he was going to let her get herself killed. TJ was kind of screwed without Margaret’s help, anyway.

 

She reached down her shirt and pulled out a small pistol. She shot TJ another warning glare and stood up, aiming her gun at the black-haired attendant. She fired twice, shooting his trigger finger first and then shooting his head. TJ rose to his feet as well, only to be shoved back down by Margaret as the blonde attendant began shooting solely in their direction. Margaret hissed as a  bullet ripped through her left forearm. She dropped the injured limb to her side and fired back using only one hand.

 

She missed, so TJ grabbed her waist and pulled her down again. Her expression was terrifying, but TJ knew what he had to do. He grabbed Margaret by her injured shoulder, knowing full well that she could shove him off if she wanted to. “Margaret, these guys want me.”

 

“I know, that’s why I’m protecting you.” Margaret said, sounding unsettled. She hadn’t expected this attack, TJ could tell. “What’s your point?”

 

“Do you trust me?” TJ asked. Margaret’s rage dropped away, to be replaced with fear, concern, and the slightest bit of curiousity. She nodded, slowly, regretfully, like trusting him was the last thing she wanted to do in her life. TJ took a deep breath and let go of her. “Then be my back up. And if anything goes wrong, don’t let this plane crash.”

 

“Thomas…” Margaret started, but TJ was already standing up and jumping over her. He stood in the middle of the isle with his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest and his hands hanging loosely by his sides. He stared the blonde attendant straight on, and ignored the machine gun pointed at his chest. He’d never considered pulling a sacrifice play, but these people were here for him. If he could distract her, Margaret could get her shot in and everything would be fine. If he died, Margaret would be sure to avenge him, and the passengers would be saved regardless.

 

TJ slowly raised his hands. “You don’t have to do this, okay? I’m the one you want, I know. So just… take me. Or whatever. I’m surrendering, okay? So… stop shooting people?”

 

The blonde stared at him, her nose scrunched up in confusion. Margaret didn’t care. She knew an opportunity when it presented itself. She fired a shot into the blonde’s head, and the woman fell to the floor. The plane fell into terrified silence as the other passengers all stared up at Margaret and TJ like they were some kind of gods. TJ smiled and awkwardly waved. Margaret put her weapon in her waistband. She moved in front of TJ and walked over to the two dead flight attendants. She knelt down beside each one, checking for a pulse. “They’re dead. Your risk paid off, Mr. Hammond. Congratulations.”

 

“Thanks.” TJ said, surprised at how shaky his voice was.

 

Margaret stood back up and looked up and down the plane. She put her hands on her hips and began speaking to the passengers. “Alright, my name is Margaret Johnson, I’m a member of the United States Secret Service, and I need anyone sitting beside an injured person to raise their hand. Anyone who is uninjured, please stand up and empty the seats so that those who are in danger of dying can be laid down to have their injuries dealt with. Mr. Hammond, I believe you’ll find a first aid kit in your duffel bag. Please get it out and give it to me, then go to the cockpit and alert the pilots that everything is under control and they do not need to worry.”

 

“Got it.” TJ nodded. He reached up and pulled his duffel bag out, digging around to find the first aid kit. He pulled it out and held it up for Margaret to see. She nodded and held up her right hand. It was already covered in blood. TJ felt bad tossing it to her, since she was injured and probably helping someone put pressure on a gunshot wound, but he really didn’t want to have to walk over the dead bodies. He’d done enough of that today.

 

So he threw it. Margaret caught it with grace, not like she had a bullet in her other arm. A bullet she had yet to deal with.

 

TJ then turned to the door to the cockpit. He strode forward, glancing down at himself to make sure he didn’t look too much like a psychopath before he walked in there. He wasn’t sure what he would find, but he didn’t make it to the cockpit. As he was reaching for the door handle, the plane suddenly took a nosedive, keening forward. TJ slammed into the door and managed to roll out of the way before the food cart hurtled into the place he had been standing seconds before.

 

Margaret was holding onto one of the bleeding passengers, yelling at the ones who were uninjured to grab an injured person and try to hold them as still as possible. Even from across the plane, TJ could see the terror in her eyes. She’d thought they were safe now, that all they had to do was save a few more lives and land in Sweden. TJ had thought they were all safe, too, but apparently not.

 

He still had to get into the cockpit. The food cart was in the way, though. TJ shoved it over and it fell with a clatter, glass and liquids sloshing around beneath his feet. It wasn’t completely out of the way, but at least TJ could get the door open. He turned the handle and forced the metal door back an inch, then another, and another.

 

And then, for the millionth time today, TJ found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. He didn’t know if it was the pilot or the copilot holding the weapon, but the other one was slumped over dead in his chair, and this one was full of rage. TJ let go of the door, hoping it would just close on the copilot and he could ask Margaret for reinforcements, but the copilot stuck his foot out and kept the door open. TJ heard the safety on the gun get clicked off. “You will not stop me from taking this plane down. Al-Queda will not be stopped by American scum such as you.”

 

“How the hell did you even become a pilot?” TJ regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He regretted them even more when the copilot shot him and he fell back. He slumped down amongst the spilt wine, his blood joining in with the deep maroon of the alcohol. TJ’s vision faded, and before everything disappeared, he heard two gunshots and Margaret’s scream: “ _Thomas_! NO!”

 

Everything was black. And there was nothing to feel. TJ knew that he was dead, and even though a part of him had always wanted to end up like this, most of him was trying to not be dead. Most of him wanted to be alive. If this was death, this endless void of absolutely nothing, then TJ would take reality, life, any day. Because, sure, being alive was painful and he hated it a lot, but dammit, at least it felt real. This didn’t feel like anything, and TJ hated it. He didn’t want this. He regretted the suicide attempts, he regretted his sacrifice play, he just regretted. Except he couldn’t really regret because everything was blank and nothing was connected to him anymore.

 

His thoughts were outside of him. He was outside of him.

 

Death was surreal. Death was silent, and unfeeling, and completely empty. Death was the opposite of life, and not what TJ had wanted or expected.

 

And then he heard a voice, and there was light streaming in, slowly. There was also pain, a sharp pain at the top of his body (his forehead? TJ wasn’t sure if he still had one of those), but that was irrelevant. The voice was what TJ focused on, because he knew it from somewhere, and that meant that it had to be real.

 

“Williams, I need you to instigate Extraction Plan Delta. Commercial airline, flying over Belgium. Cities in path are Charleroi, Dinant, Bastogne, Konz. Need for back-up imminent, twelve known fatalities, six in critical condition, approximately ninety people on board, crew included.” The voice said. It was a woman’s voice, but TJ was having a hard time placing it. His mother’s? It was authoritative enough. But TJ knew that his mother wouldn’t be able to know a flight pattern like that.

 

There was a jerk, and a scream, and suddenly TJ was on a plane, covered in blood and wine and glass shards, and there was Margaret, calmly talking into her earpiece like they weren’t all about to die. Except TJ _had_ died, and the scream had come from his mouth, and Margaret dropped her finger from her earpiece and stared at him. Her deep blue eyes were huge, her hand hovering over her gun, fingers tense. She realised that it was just him, though, and relaxed. Her whole body seemed to fall down a full two inches, but that could have been the falling plane.

 

“Thomas…” She whispered, like she wasn’t sure he was real. _He_ wasn’t sure he was real, but he knew, somehow, that he was. Because neither heaven nor hell nor any other option would look like this ruined plane _and_ have Margaret in it. Because Margaret was a living heaven within hell, and this plane was heaven turned to hell.

 

And that thought process was oddly theological for someone who hadn’t been to a church service since he was seven.

 

TJ sat back up, slowly, avoiding looking at the dead copilot staring up at him with a single drop of blood falling across his face, splitting it in half. He focused on Margaret, because he knew she was real, and he knew that she would always make sense, somehow. “I’m supposed to be dead, right? I mean… I got shot in the head, with a bullet. From a gun. Bullets from guns kill people, right? So what am I doing here? What’s going on here?”

 

“They weren’t after you.” Margaret was speaking so softly that TJ had to strain to hear her. Apparently dying hadn’t improved his club-damaged hearing. “They were just terrorists, Mr. Hammond, and they are taking this plane down.”

 

“No they’re not.” TJ shook his head. Margaret was wrong about that. Those guys, the copilot and the two attendants, they weren’t going to win. Margaret was better than them. Hell, she’d killed all three of them and she’d been saving the passengers before TJ semi-died on the plane. “You and I, we’re gonna save them, okay? And you’ve got your extraction plan delta or whatever. This isn’t the end, Margaret. We’re going to make it. All of us.”

 

“You’re right, Mr. Hammond, this isn’t the end. This is the beginning, and that’s why I’m trying to hide my fear.” Margaret’s voice grew more study as she spoke, but it got no louder. She stood up, one hand on her gun and the other back on her earpiece. “Williams, scratch Delta, we’re using Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Squared. Get the tracker on this plane now; I’m taking us down to ten thousand. When this plane blows open, you need to have the Medic ready for the extraction.”

 

“Excuse me, ma’am,” One of the not dying passengers said from where he was holding pressure on a teenager’s leg while the teen gripped the arm of their chair like it was the only thing keeping them in reality. “But did you just say that the plane’s going to get blown open?”

 

“I heavily implied that, yes.” Margaret said. She strode back to where most of the passengers were crowded on the floor and in the seats, her head held high but her shoulders relaxed enough that the passengers knew she wasn’t a threat to them. To anyone who tried taking this plane down, yes, but not to the people already on it. She knelt down beside the teen, and it was then that TJ realised how similar in age the two of them looked. Yes, Margaret was covered in burn scars and there were bags under her eyes from nights of endless work, but she was only twenty-six. TJ was older than her, and there were still days when he forgot that he was an adult and had to worry about his future.

 

She should not be qualified for the kind of things she was doing, and yet she acted with complete confidence, even when TJ could see her eyes shining with fear.

 

“You’re going to be alright.” Margaret told the teenager. “I have a friend, Williams, who flies helicopters and knows where we are. He’s coming for us, and he’ll be able to land all of you somewhere safe where you can have your injuries dealt with. So, please, stay with me. All of you, stay with me, and trust me. My assignment may have been only to protect Mr. Hammond, but as long as you are on this plane, I will do everything I can to protect you.”

 

There was a loud beeping from the cockpit. The door was being held open by the corpse of the copilot, and TJ could see that the controls were flashing red. He turned back to Margaret. “Um, the cockpit’s going insane. Just… in case that was relevant or anything.”

 

“Sarcasm isn’t helpful in life or death situations, Mr. Hammond.” Margaret said, dead-pan. She got up from her spot on the floor and walked back over to the front of the plane though, and into the cockpit. She nudged the pilot’s headphones off of his head and put them onto her own. “Hello.”

 

“ _British Airlines flight 7933, we’re receiving distress signals, please report in._ ” TJ could hear a polite British female on the other end. Margaret looked unimpressed. She stared down at the control panel, her eyes flicking over the lights as she tried to figure out what each one did. “I am aware of these distress signals, but as I have been too busy keeping a triage of terrorists from taking the plane down, I didn’t consider calling in until now. But since you would like a report: the pilot and copilot are dead, as well as ten others. We have six passengers in critical condition, an extraction team on the way, and a spilled food cart. Oh, and you also might want to be a bit more vigilant in your back ground checks. The three terrorists were all members of the flight crew.”

 

Margaret took the headphones off of her head and snapped them in half. She then pulled out her gun from her waist band, glanced at it, and then handed it to TJ. “Hold this, it’s not going to work well enough.”

 

“Well enough for what?” TJ called out as she left him alone in the cockpit with two dead pilots.

 

She returned a second later with one of the automatic weapons. “The first part of Extraction Plan Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Squared. Which, in case you were wondering, is an acronym for w _hat the fucking fuck_ , more commonly known as _this is the stupidest plan ever, there’s no logical situation to use it in and yet here we are, Rogers, fucking using it_.”

 

“Rogers.” TJ said. “As in Captain Rogers? Captain Steve Rogers?”

 

“Yep. The plan was given its name by your great-uncle, one Sargent James Buchanan Barnes.” Margaret hoisted the machine gun up onto her shoulder, and pulled the trigger, completely destroying the control system. The plane jerked downwards, and both TJ and Margaret nearly fell on their asses. TJ grabbed the machine gun from Margaret’s hands because it was dangerous enough without her touching it. “What the hell? What the actual hell? Did you just destroy the whole fucking plane? And then randomly throw out a fact about my—wait am I really related to Bucky? That’s kind of cool.”

 

Margaret nodded, and raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you having a mental breakdown about my destroying the plane?”

 

“Yeah, about that.” TJ said, glaring at her. “I get it, you’re a super badass spy lady and I’m apparently the result of Soviet science. Us dying? Kind of unlikely at this point. But the rest of the people on this plane, the people that you literally just promised to save? They’re not like us, Margaret! They can actually die! Shooting all of the controls in the cockpit is generally a good way to ensure that everyone on a plane is going to fucking die!”

 

“Not if the copilot had rigged the controls.” Margaret said. She leaned over the copilot’s chair and pulled out a small remote from within the wiring. She held it up so that TJ could see it. There was a bullet hole in the middle of it and it looked completely unusable. “This is a remote control, with a dead's man switch in place. If the copilot didn't scan his fingerprint every five minutes, then the remote would take over and the plane would go down in Brussels. As it is, I’ve just kept us from flying over any populated areas. When this plane crashes with nothing in it but the corpses, there won’t be any more fatalities.”

 

Well then. TJ had nothing to say to that. Margaret was something else entirely. There was no way she could have known that there were three terrorists on this flight, otherwise she would have never gotten on it with TJ in the first place. Yet she still managed to figure out the terrorists’ plan and thwart it before anyone else could get killed.  TJ lowered the machine gun to the floor. “Alright. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

 

Margaret stared at him. “What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, I’m still stuck on the whole SHIELD is actually Hydra and everyone is apparently a terrorist now part of reality. You… you’re three steps ahead of the rest of the world.” TJ made a sweeping motion at her body, for no other reason than he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing with his hands. “So, um, go do whatever badass healing things need to be done. I’m the sidekick, Agent Johnson. You’re the superhero right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a reason I mentioned that TJ and Bucky are related. I will explain that later. 
> 
> Elaine Barrish is Bucky's niece, by the way, and her mother is one of Bucky's younger sisters. Because I'm pretty sure that Bucky had a sister or two, and even if he didn't, this is somewhat of an AU so I'm allowed.


	7. At the End of the World, Stay by my Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many ways to save a person. Some are more physical than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter introduces James Williams, a native Canadian with a thing for stealing helicopters, and Wolf Schimdt, who is a little shit and fun to write.

Williams was able to successfully get all of the passengers, and even the dead ones, out of the plane and into his helicopter with no real issues. He had then radioed to Margaret that he was going to drop them off at the closest hospital and return for her and TJ. And so, TJ found himself in a crashing plane with no one but Margaret for company. He had no idea what to say to her, and was glad when she started talking instead.

 

“Your grandmother, Margaret Barrish, was one of Sargent Barnes’ younger sisters. I’m not surprised she never told you about her relation to him; it’s a lot easier for children to idolise people when they can’t see them as real.” Margaret said. She was mopping up the wine, which TJ thought was a pretty pointless task, but whatever. Not really his division of expertise, anyway. She tucked a strand of her thick auburn hair behind her ear. “You need to know now though. Your mother, your grandmother, even your brother, they could all be at risk of ending up with the Phoenix Protocol. And that would be very bad.”

 

“Why?” TJ asked. Sure, the Red Room was bad, and so was Hydra, but the Phoenix Protocol itself seemed fine. It actually seemed like a good idea, and so TJ told Margaret that. “It heals people. It’s like the ultimate medicine.”

 

“But the people who would use it to protect wouldn’t want it because they’d realise that they’d eventually outlive all their friends.” Margaret tossed a piece of glass into the trash. “And the ones who would use it would abuse it’s power. Calix, the scientist who created it, said that it was a lot like communism turned out to be: brilliant in theory, but horrible in practice.”

 

“Oh.” TJ said, because that wasn’t the analogy he had been expecting. He also wondered who exactly this Calix guy was to Margaret. Obviously they knew each other relatively well, but TJ couldn’t figure out what Margaret was doing in the company of a former Soviet scientist who had basically created the Black Widow. Sure, Natasha Romanoff had ended up pretty okay, but what if she wasn’t the only one? Margaret had said that anyone with Romanoff’s or Sargent Barnes’ DNA was susceptible to the Phoenix Protocol. Who knew how many people qualified as related? Who knew how many others were out there with the Phoenix Protocol in their blood? Or genes. Or where ever it was.

 

Margaret put her finger to her earpiece. “Mark? Mark, hey, hey. I’m fine. I’m… well, I got shot, but Mr. Hammond hasn’t tried to kill me yet so either he didn’t get brainwashed, or he did, and Hydra told him to act natural around me. I’m assuming the former. He’s too nervous to have been wiped.”

 

She was quiet for a moment, and TJ considered getting out of his chair and walking over to see what her expression was, but something told him to stay put. Maybe it was because Margaret had called the man on the other end of the comms by his first name, or because her voice was soft, almost intimate when she spoke. Either way, approaching felt like he’d be invading her privacy.

 

“Yeah, Williams is on his way.” Margaret nodded. Her eyes were closed, and TJ couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought he saw a tear sliding down her face. This wasn’t the Margaret Johnson he was supposed to see, TJ knew that. She was a public figure as well as a spy. She had too many covers, none of which included a scared young woman on a plane headed into the ground. That Margaret was allowing TJ to see her like this meant that she trusted him. “Don’t let Vi see any of this, please. I know she doesn’t know I’m on the plane, but please. I don’t want her to know until I can tell her to her face.”

 

A pause. Margaret swallowed. “Yes. We can’t keep her in the dark forever, and now that Thomas is under my protection… this is something we have to do, Mark. Thank you. I love you.”

 

She dropped her hand down to her side and stared at the floor of the plane. TJ watched her, watched as her hands tensed up and curled into fists, watched as her knuckles turned to white and ground down into the carpet that was stained with blood and with wine. He watched as she broke apart while still managing to keep herself together, and he realised that she did know what his life was like. Their lives were like trying to piece together a shattered glass vase with Elmer’s School glue. Except the vase wasn’t just shattered, it was shot, and most of the pieces were buried in the ground.

 

TJ got up out of his seat and slowly made his way across the falling plane. His ears were popping and he was seriously glad he didn’t ever get motion sickness, but he crossed over to Margaret anyway. She was hurting, freaking out, and TJ needed her to know that falling apart was okay sometimes. No one had ever told him that, and he’d turned into a sad gay junkie. He wasn’t sure how much of that he could save Margaret from, but as long as he helped her through something, it would be worth it.

 

He got the feeling that, even with a fiancé, Margaret still felt really alone. Being a woman of power did that to people. TJ had seen his own mother distance herself from the people she cared about because she had to look powerful and independent and friends didn’t have a place in that equation. TJ didn’t know specifically what that was like, but from the way Margaret was trying to hide her face, he was pretty sure it sucked ass.

 

He knelt down beside her in the spilt wine and blood, and slowly reached out with his left hand. He didn’t want to surprise her and end up getting stabbed. That would be awkward. “Margaret… I’m… going to hug you… please don’t kill me. I don’t need to die twice in one day.”

 

She looked up at him through her messed up hair. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and the redness only amplified her deep blue irises. She looked beautiful and broken, like a castle over-taken by weeds. TJ grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her like he was a shield.  Her head fell onto his shoulder, her nose digging into the space between his shoulder and his chest muscle. Her nails dug into his back and TJ tried not to flinch because Margaret really needed to trim her nails if they were that long and sharp.

 

TJ rubbed her back. “You’ll be okay, Margaret. You said that Williams was gonna come get us before the plane crashes, and I believe you. We’re gonna be okay.”

 

“I know. I know, just… my daughter shouldn’t have to deal with this.” Margaret said. “And I hate myself for saying this, but I never wanted her. I would have aborted her if that was an option, if I had known, but I hadn’t, and Mark… Mark’s the one who got me through this. So even though I love Vi and Mark both, I sometimes wish I didn’t have them worrying about me. I wish I didn’t have to worry that one day, someone will realise who they are to me and they’ll go after my family. And I won’t be there to save them, because I’ll be somewhere far away, doing something like this, and I’ll lose them both.”

 

“Then don’t do this.” TJ said. “Didn’t you say that the SHIELD guy let you do this? SHIELD’s dead, so you don’t need to protect me anymore. You can go home and protect your family.”

 

Margaret lurched back, her expression furious. She shook her head vigorously. “No. Thomas James Hammond, from the day I met you, I have wanted to protect you. _This_ is what I’m here for, this is what I am supposed to do whether I have a husband, a child, or neither. I love them both, very much, but they are not my goal in life. Keeping you safe, that’s my goal. I would kill to protect Mark and Vi, I’ve already killed to protect them, but for you? Thomas, I would die to keep you alive.”

 

“Except I can’t die, so that’s irrelevant now.” TJ said.

 

Margaret pursed her lips. She folded her hands together and stared at the floor. TJ raised an eyebrow, wondering what she was thinking about. Margaret looked back up, and brushed her hair away from her face. “About that. Thomas, no one can know about the reincarnation aspect of the Phoenix Protocol. There’s too much at risk if the world realises that you’re unkillable. I’ve talked to Calix about it, and he told me that the reason he destroyed the Phoenix Protocol was because the Red Room started testing the fatality limits of the test subjects. And what they found out was… disturbing, to say the least.”

 

“Disturbing how?”

 

“Just that there are worse things than death, and the Red Room found all of them. The torture you can endure now, it’s more than anyone without the Protocol could even fathom.” Margaret said quietly. “Waterboarding is one of the nicer things they did to Agent Romanoff.”

 

There was a loud whirring sound outside of the plane, and Margaret stood up. TJ did as well, even though he wanted to know what exactly the Black Widow had gone through in the Red Room. She was a legend, even amongst those who were not part of the intelligence world, and to think that she’d been through horrible torture… TJ thought that a support group would be a good idea, but he wasn’t sure if there were any other Phoenix Protocol people besides himself and Agent Romanoff.

 

Margaret threw open the plane door. Outside, there was a military style helicopter flying above them. A person with wild black hair leaned out over the side and waved down at Margaret. She rolled her eyes and yelled, “Toss the damn rope, Schmidt!”

 

“ _Verstehen_!” The black-haired person yelled back. He disappeared into the helicopter and then a rope fell out, swinging out in front of the opened side of the plane. Margaret turned back to TJ. “Ready to get out?”

 

“On that?” TJ pointed at the swinging rope. There was a small seat at the end, but it didn’t look safe at all. Even with the knowledge that he couldn’t die, TJ didn’t want to get on that thing. But Margaret was waiting for him to move, her face void of emotion save for the one slightly raised eyebrow, so he stepped forward.

 

There was almost a foot of space between the plane and the rope chair. TJ stared down at the ground far below them. He glanced back at Margaret, his grip on the frame tightening instinctively. “What happens if I fall? Do you think I’d survive that?”

 

“If you fall, Schmidt will fall after you. He’s already got a parachute and is ready to jump if you don’t make it.” Margaret said. For someone who could easily die, she seemed unnaturally calm. Of course, she’d probably been trained to do crazy shit like this, so TJ shouldn’t have been that surprised. Margaret knew what she was doing, even if TJ didn’t. He turned back around. TJ took a deep breath, and then leaned out. His fingers grazed the side of the swing.

 

TJ leaned back in. “Can’t they bring it closer?”

 

“Not unless you want to get hit by the plane as you’re pulled up. They’re close enough as it is, just jump out and grab the rope.” Margaret said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. Oh, yeah, jumping out of a plane ten thousand feet above the ground and climbing into a semi-stable swing sounded so easy. TJ was shaking with excitement.

 

His grip slipped slightly and he swore his heart actually quit on him for three seconds. He glanced back over his shoulder quickly. “I do not think you understand just how much I cannot do that.”

 

“Try it.” Margaret said, because apparently she did not understand just how much TJ could not jump off of a plane. “You’d be surprised at what the human body can manage.”

 

“This is the worst idea ever.” TJ said. He took another deep breath, let go of the plane’s frame, and jumped. There was a split second where he was flying across the space between the plane and the rope, and it felt amazing. Like he was a bird or something. It felt more real than anything else in his life that he could think of, and he wished that it could go on forever, but it couldn’t.

 

TJ reached out and somehow managed to grab on to the side of the rope chair, and then he was dangling by one arm, in the middle of the sky. _Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t fucking look down you fucking assnugget, SHIT._ TJ looked down. And then almost let go before he realised that, while he’d probably come back from the fall, hitting the ground from this height would hurt like a bitch. And so TJ looked back up at the rope and the helicopter, and he swung his free arm up, grabbing onto the rope chair with both of his hands.

 

Getting into a swing was a lot harder when the swing was ten thousand feet off of the ground, and TJ was pretty sure that his way of getting in position was the least graceful thing in the world. His legs swung wildly as he tried, and eventually succeeded, in pulling himself up and into the seat. He settled himself and gave Margaret a thumbs up. She nodded in confirmation and put her finger to her comms.

 

Then TJ began rising up towards the helicopter, and he tightened his grip on the rope. This was completely surreal. This was so, so far from anything TJ had ever experienced in his life, but it seemed incredibly real.

 

TJ wondered if there was such a thing as an adrenaline junkie, and if so, where one went to become one. This kind of stuff, terrifying as it was, was also pretty exciting. TJ didn’t think he’d ever get used to nearly dying (and occasionally really dying), but hey. Anything was better than being written off as a token character trope.

 

A few minutes later, and he was level with the helicopter. The dark-haired guy from before extended his hand, and TJ grabbed it before getting yanked into the helicopter without any warning. TJ let out a surprised yelp, and the pilot let out a snort. TJ rolled his eyes, suddenly feeling a little pissed off at these people, despite the fact that they were saving him and Margaret. “Shut up. It’s not like I’ve actually been trained for any of this shit.”

 

“I like this _Arschficker_. We’re keeping him.” The dark-haired man said as he lowered the rope chair again. Now that TJ could see his face, he noticed that this guy was even younger than Margaret. He had overgrown black hair, half of which was shaved off completely. He wore thick black eyeliner and fingerless leather gloves, but even with the coverings on his body, TJ could still make out a series of burn scars.

 

The pilot let out a sigh. “Wolf, what did I tell you? You can’t go around calling people that.”

 

“Fine, he’s a _Mannschlampe_.” Wolf rolled his eyes. “Way to ruin my creativity, Williams.”

 

“It’s what I live for.” The pilot, Williams, dean-panned, though TJ was pretty sure he caught a smile on the man’s face before Williams turned his attention back to flying the plane. TJ just sat down on a spare metal box and listened to the banter between Wolf and Williams. He tried to figure out just what they were to each other, but he had no idea. He stopped guessing when Margaret hopped off of the chair like it was nothing. She nodded to Wolf. “Thank you. How’s Liesel doing?”

 

“She was doing some undercover work with Nico the last time I heard from her, and I’m pretty sure she’s banging his wife, so she’s good.” Wolf said. TJ raised an eyebrow at that, wondering if Nico knew about Liesel, whoever she was, having an affair with his wife. Assuming that all of these people had jobs similar to what Margaret did, TJ was kind of afraid for what would happen to Nico’s wife and Liesel when Nico eventually found out about the affair. Nothing good, obviously, because sleeping with a married person never ended well. TJ knew all about that.

 

Margaret nodded, like this was a completely normal conversation in a completely normal setting. “That’s interesting. Well, I hope neither of them die.”

 

“Same.” Wolf gave a two-fingered salute. He closed the door to the helicopter and tossed an empty bag of chips up at Williams. It didn’t make it that far, and Wolf scowled. “ _Doofes Physiks_. Williams, drive the _Gottverdammt_ helicopter away before anyone thinks that we’re trying to take this plane down. I don’t want to bring back the terrorist legacy thing.”

 

“It’s not a legacy if he’s not your biological father.” Williams said, but the helicopter stopped hovering and swerved away from the crashing plane. They were heading east, towards Austria. Margaret explained that Calix, the scientist behind the Phoenix Protocol, was currently living in Austria, and that he wanted to see TJ. Apparently Calix was not anywhere close to the stereotypical mad scientist, save for the fact that he spent a large portion of his time in his underground lab and had a generic dislike of the human population. But he wouldn’t inject TJ with a bunch of random shit to see if it could kill him. Calix was, at least where TJ was concerned, not a threat, and very humane.

 

TJ just nodded along, thinking that these people’s lives were very complicated and straight out of a spy thriller. Then again, they were all some kind of spy, so it fit.

 

“We’ll be landing in ten minutes.” Williams called back to the three of them. “It’s just below freezing, so if you’ve got a jacket, you might wanna put it on now.”

 

“Says the man from Canada.” Wolf muttered, but he pulled on a large leather jacket anyway. He turned the collar up and shoved his hands into his pockets. Wolf tapped his foot on the ground and looked TJ up and down. “Just a warning, Calix is kind of the head patriarch of our family-thing. So, don’t be surprised if you end up being adopted by at least three of us by the end of your trip.”

 

“I already have a family.” TJ said. Wolf smirked. “Irrelevant. We know a tragic backstory when we see it, Hammond. Don’t think you’ll be getting out of the Gordiyenko family Christmas _that_ easily.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will take us back to Russia, near the beginning of the Phoenix Protocol.
> 
> It will also bring in some characters from one of my other stories.


	8. Sokhranit' sem'yu, malen'kogo mal'chika.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Save the family, little boy." Or, the things that a certain Soviet scientist will do to keep his sister safe from anyone who would want to hurt her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now this story ties in with my other one, Side A: Hart, Kobrska. That story starts with Sofia Kobrska as a child, though, and Calix isn't in it yet. 
> 
> But if you like Sofia and want more of her, that's the story to go to.

Russia, 1982

 

Calix found himself in Russia again, even though he had told Ven that he would never return to his home country. Not that he hated Russia in any way, but there were too many bad memories there. Memories from before Calix had discovered his talent for technology, memories from when his father had beat him and his mother, memories from when his mother drank so much that Natalia almost didn’t survive the womb.

 

It had been nearly ten years since Calix had run into his sister at Outré Academy. Almost ten years since he met all of the friends he now had. He’d changed a lot, and now he was going to help Natalia.

 

Natalia had been born from a drunk, abused woman, and raised by her abusive father and her caring older sister. Calix had been the lucky one: Violet Gordiyenko had chosen to flee with her broken son instead of either of her daughters. But, because Sofia had asked him to, Calix was back and ready to help save his sister.

 

Sofia opened the door to her home as soon as Calix knocked. She was holding her son in one arm, and Natalia was cowering behind her. Natalia was fifteen, but she barely looked twelve. Both girls had been thrown into the Red Room by their father the day they turned ten. Sofia had spent most of her time protecting Natalia, who was mute and frequently disassociated herself from the rest of the world whenever things got too violent. In the Red Room, violence was usually the norm.

 

Sofia gave her younger brother a strained smile. “Calix. It’s good to see you.”

 

“Same. Ven says hello, by the way. He’s living in Sweden at the moment, if you didn’t get my letter.” Calix watched his sister’s face, desperately hoping that she wouldn’t hate him for this. Ven wasn’t Calix’s first boyfriend, but he was five years younger than Calix, and the scared son of an Italian mob boss, at that. Calix was walking a fine line as it was, and if Sofia pissed on him for it, Calix wasn’t sure what would happen. He loved Ven, sure, but he didn’t want to live in a world where he couldn’t be with his family.

 

“I got your letter.” Sofia said as Calix entered the small house, stomping the snow off of his boots as he went. Sofia’s pale green eyes scanned across Calix’s face. “And I trust you both not to do anything stupid. You both know what’s going on in the West, and how easily it could spread over the ocean. You also know that his father will kill you if he realises who you are.”

 

“Which is why he’ll never know.” Calix hadn’t realised it until this point, but both he and Sofia were speaking in Swedish instead of Russian. Calix assumed that it was because of Natalia; even though she was mute, she could still understand people perfectly well. Calix had actually had the chance to test her intelligence, and she’d scored higher than both himself and Sofia. Sofia had smirked, saying that it was her wonderful parenting that had made Natalia so brilliant, and Calix had laughed because he didn’t want to think about how Sofia shouldn’t have had to raise a child when she was only eight. It wasn’t fair, but their lives had never really been fair.

 

Sofia shut the door and put down her son, Misha. She brushed his hair away from his face. She said to him, in Russian, “Misha, why don’t you and Natalia go into the bedroom and work on your reading while Uncle Calix and I discuss some things.”

 

“But Mama, I can’t read without you!” Misha grabbed at his mother’s sleeve, but Sofia shook her head. She’d made up her mind, and Misha had better do what he had been told. Sofia was a determined, stubborn woman, and when she made a decision, she stuck with it no matter what happened.

 

“Mikhail, listen to your mother.” Calix said. “She’s smarter than you think, so if she thinks you should go read, then there’s a good reason for it.”

 

“Will you show me science when you’re finished?” Misha asked Calix, his green eyes wide and excited. Calix nodded, doing his best to not smile like an idiot. He was proud of Sofia, for being able to create a family in the hellhole that was life. Calix would never get that; he was destined to have to live through his sister’s domesticity for the rest of his life, since the powers that be had decided that two men were not acceptable as parents.

 

Misha grabbed Calix around his waist and hugged him. “Thank you! I’ll go read now!”

 

“Enjoy it.” Calix said as Misha grabbed Natalia’s wrist and pulled her away from the door. Natalia looked back at Sofia and Calix, like she knew that they were about to start discussing her future as soon as she was gone. Calix hated that Natalia couldn’t be there to share her opinions, but he knew that Sofia had a good grasp on what their younger sister could and could not go through. If Calix suggested something outside of Natalia’s realm of possibility, Sofia would shut him down.

 

Sofia turned to Calix, and any trace of maternal comfort was gone. Calix was talking to Agent Kobrska of the Red Room, a Russian legend who had killed her father and her fiance’s family when she was nineteen, just because they wouldn’t let Sofia and Mikhail be together. Or, that was the story everyone heard. The truth was that Sofia wanted her father dead and Mikhail wanted to take control of the KGB. So Sofia killed everyone who was an issue, and said it was for love.

 

Sofia crossed her arms over her chest. “This serum, what did you call it again?”

 

“The Phoenix Protocol.” Calix said. “It’s very fragile, and only works once it’s been calibrated to a person’s DNA. I’ve already calibrated it to ours, so Natalia will be fine. I can administer it at any time, but I need a laboratory, so that I can monitor her vitals for the first twenty-four hours.”

 

“What happens in the first twenty-four hours?” Sofia cocked an eyebrow. Calix pushed his long white-blonde hair out of his face. “Anything. The first twenty-four hours are when the serum is adjusting to its new host, so that’s when it’s most likely to show its origins.”

 

“Alien origins, you mean.” Sofia narrowed her eyes. Calix knew that she didn’t like the idea of giving Natalia an untested drug, but Calix was sure that it would help her. He nodded. Sofia glanced down the hallway to where her son and her sister were in the bedroom. “I know that you trust your own inventions with your life, and I know that they’ve all turned out alright in the end, but Calix… this isn’t a robot you’re trying to improve. This is your sister. And she deserves a good life. If you are not one-hundred percent sure that your Phoenix Protocol will give her the life she knows, then I don’t want her to have it. I’d rather have Natalia be a silent, disabled human than a deformed alien because of a formula gone wrong.”

 

“Are you insulting my science or my theory?” Calix narrowed his eyes.

 

Sofia rolled hers. “Neither. I just want you to know that if this goes south, I will blame you, and I will come after you until you fix it.”

 

“I understand. I’m still going to need a laboratory.” Calix said. Sofia nodded, her Agent character falling off to be replaced with the sister he knew best. She told him that the Red Room had a laboratory where they kept the Winter Soldier, and that she could sneak him and Natalia in at night, once her husband got home. She didn’t want to leave Misha alone in the house, which made since. Both Sofia and Mikhail were killers, and they’d made a long list of enemies during their four year relationship.

 

So he and Sofia waited. They talked, caught each other up on what had really happened in the years since Sofia had graduated from Outre Academy a year before Calix. Calix did his best to not panic and freak out about the whole Ven situation, because Sofia had more important things to deal with than her brother having a relationship crisis. It was just that Ven was the first guy since Arturo who had gotten Calix’s attention for more than a minute, and Ven was barely legal at that, and Calix had known Ven since they were just teens learning how to kill a man with a toothpick and chewing gum. Calix was in over his head with the Italian man currently waiting for him in his house in Sweden, but he knew that he wasn’t letting Ven go. Not for a stupid reason like uncertainty.

 

Mikhail arrived around three in the morning, covered in blood and with a knife protruding from his shoulder. Sofia muttered something incomprehensible in Russian and disappeared around the kitchen counter for a few minutes. When she reappeared, she was holding gauze and a bottle of vodka. She walked over to her husband and handed him the two items. “You know what to do with these, I suppose? Calix and I have something to do, so if you wouldn’t mind watching over Misha while we’re out…”

 

“What about Natalia?” Mikhail asked, looking ready to defend Natalia if it came to that. Sofia cupped his face in her hand. “She’s coming with us. This will make her better, Mikhail.”

 

He didn’t look like he believed her, and Calix had a sudden urge to disappear into the floor and never resurface. He was supposed to be some kind of hero right now, but instead, Natalia’s two care-givers were in complete doubt of his abilities. Instead of slinking away from the couple like he would have five years ago, he cleared his throat to make himself known. “Fia, if we are going to do this, we should do it now. I don’t know enough about the Winter Soldier project, but if Russian scientists are anything like the Swedes, they won’t be asleep for much longer.”

 

“You’re right. Head outside to the bike. I’ll wake Natalia up and then we’ll go.” Sofia said. She kissed Mikhail on the cheek before stepping away from him and heading to the bedroom. Calix and Mikhail stared at each other in an awkward silence while Sofia murmured softly to Natalia in Russian, requesting her to wake up. Calix ran a hand through his hair and looked around, hoping some kind of conversational topic would show up on the walls. “So. You’re taller than I thought you’d be.”

 

“You’re thinner than I thought you would be.” Mikhail said, and Calix scrunched his face up in confusion. Mikhail sat down on one of the chairs, and pulled the knife out of his shoulder, paying the blood no attention. He uncapped the bottle of vodka, took a drink from it, and then poured some of it onto the wound to clean it off. “Sofia said you were always a scrawny prick, but I wasn’t expecting this. I can have some of my boys in Sweden send you food, if you need it.”

 

“I’m fine.” Calix said, folding his arms tightly over his chest. “I just… sometimes when I’m working, I just… forget, you know? I forget to eat. So… I never check to see what I have, and then when I realise I don’t have anything, I forget to go to the market and get more. It’s a cycle, but I have a bo—roommate now, and he’s Italian, so food won’t be a problem.”

 

“Carlos Veneziano.” Mikhail said with a tiny smirk on his lips. Calix swallowed, thinking about all the excuses he could use if he had to kill Mikhail in self-defense. But there was no reason to get into a fight. Mikhail finished wrapping his knife wound and took another drink from the vodka. “His father’s got a man hunt out for him, you know. So if you’d like to keep your boyfriend safe, I suggest you don’t fuck it up with Natalia. She’s like a daughter to me, Calix, and I, like many fathers, do not appreciate it when older men hurt my daughter.”

 

“I won’t hurt her.” Calix said. “She’s my sister just as much as she’s Sofia’s.”

 

Mikhail opened his mouth, about to say something probably insulting, but Sofia and Natalia reappeared. Sofia’s eyes flickered from her brother to her husband, then back to Calix. She glared at him. “I thought I told you to wait outside, Calix.”

 

“Sorry.” He muttered. He heard Sofia grumble a “You should be” in Swedish as she brushed past him. Mikhail let out a laugh in the background, and Calix was torn between hating him and wanting to work his ass off to please the man.

 

He followed his sisters outside to Sofia’s winter motorbike. Natalia was wrapped head to toe in jackets and scarves, but Calix could still see her shivering as she settled in on the bike. Her wide green eyes stayed on Sofia as the older woman continued talking to her quietly in Russian. Sofia only stopped talking long enough to tell Calix to get on the bike behind Natalia, because Sofia was driving and having Natalia in the middle meant that she’d stay warm. What Sofia didn’t say was that keeping Natalia in the middle would also keep her safer. It was harder to shoot a girl when she was stuffed between two full-grown people, one of whom was wearing a bullet-resistant vest under her overcoat. Calix was a full-on target, and silently hoped that all three of them would get to the laboratory safely and without any difficulties.

 

He got on behind Natalia, and she looked back at him with fear in her eyes. She had to know what was going to happen, even if she couldn’t fully express her fear. Calix gave her a sad smile, because he too was starting to doubt himself, and he didn’t want to lose everything just because he decided to take a risk and branch out into biology.

 

Sofia got onto the bike as well, and started it up. It sputtered on, and then they were riding. The Russian air was chilly even through Calix’s multiple layers of clothing, and he wondered why Sofia had decided that a motorbike would be a good way of transportation. It seemed really impractical, given that the average temperature in this area was around negative fourteen.

 

It took them twenty minutes to get to the laboratory, and by that time, the place was bathed in darkness. The only lights came from the few cars speeding by on the road. Sofia had shut off her headlight as soon as they’d gotten off the road, and that made Calix think that Sofia hadn’t gotten permission from the Red Room higher-ups to bring her brother into the lab to mess around with some DNA. And that made Calix feel like he was sixteen again, and breaking into Arturo’s house for the purpose of science and stolen kisses. Except he didn’t plan to get dragged off to another dimension this time, because if he did… that would be an unexpected result.

 

Sofia parked the bike next to a rather unassuming shed, and shut the engine off. She got off the bike first and then helped Natalia off. She didn’t say anything to Calix, but her silence was enough for him. She would protect them both, no matter how pissed she was with Calix at the moment. She was, before everything else, Calix and Natalia’s sister, and it was her job to protect them from anyone who wanted to cause them harm.

 

Sofia led her two siblings across the snowy pavement, and swiped a card to open the door. It gave a loud beep before popping open slightly. Sofia glanced back to Calix, and whispered in Italian, “Still clear?”

 

“Still clear.” He said, and she led them inside. Sofia didn’t turn the lights on, but she took Natalia’s hand in hers as they creeped down the corridor. The place was still lit up, but there was no one there. Not even a security guard. Calix wanted to ask Sofia what strings she had pulled to make sure that this place was empty, but he knew better than to speak now while they were still out in the open.

 

They crept down an echoing stairwell, and Calix could see both of his sisters tense up every time there was the slightest sound. This place wasn’t good for either of them, and a part of Calix regretted coming to Russia to do the procedure. He could have stolen the local university’s laboratory in Gaevle, but he hadn’t. He could have driven them up to Stockholm, or met them in Stockholm, and used a laboratory there, but he hadn’t. Instead, he was in a Red Room laboratory, about to use a mostly untested (on humans) serum that might heal his sister. Might. It could kill her. Calix hadn’t done a lot of work with this new version of the Protocol.

 

The closer they got to the laboratory, the more real that possibility became. Natalia could die in an hour, and it would be Calix’s fault.

 

But he had to go through with this, because he’d feel worse if he didn’t.

 

Sofia let go of Natalia’s hand and swiped her card against another door. It beeped loudly in the silence of the building, but unlocked itself. Sofia let out a deep breath that Calix was sure she’d been holding ever since they’d entered the building. She glanced over her shoulder, her pale green eyes cold. “They keep him in here, so don’t go poking around. Just do what needs to be done so Natalia and I can go home.”

 

“I understand.” Calix said, nodding. _They keep him in here._ The “he” Sofia had mentioned had to be the Winter Soldier. Calix was both intrigued and terrified by the thought that he was about to be in the same room as the Soviet’s most dangerous, most unknown weapon. And he wouldn’t even be able to see if the rumours were true: that the Winter Soldier was Sargent James Barnes, friend of the West’s legendary Captain America.

 

It the Winter Soldier did have the face he was rumoured to have… that would be the greatest. Just, the irony in Captain America losing his best friend to every enemy the United States had ever known. Because the Winter Soldier wasn’t solely the Red Room’s; they were “renting” him from a German group known as Hydra. Calix doubted that it was the same Hydra that had grown out of Hitler, because that Hydra had been completely eradicated by 1950 by an Agent Margaret Carter. This Hydra was probably just a copycat, a few of the surviving Hydra agents trying to relive their glory days.

 

They were just wasting their time, this new Hydra. Russia was stronger than Germany, and even though the Red Room used some inhumane tactics to train its agents, it had nothing on Outre Academy. And Outre Academy had the highest success rate of all the training facilities in the world. The Red Room was a junior version of Outre, which meant that it, and its agents, would all survive for a long time. Calix had some faith in the Red Room.

 

The door closed behind them, and Sofia stood in front of it. She pulled out a large weapon that Calix hadn’t seen her arm herself with, and stared him down. “You know how to use these things, correct?”

 

“Are you talking about the guns, or the equipment?” Calix asked, setting his bag of supplies down on a side table cluttered with basic autopsy supplies. “Because I know how to handle a gun, but this equipment is so old that I might need our mother to help me figure it out.”

 

“Mother didn’t know how to use anything made after 1955.” Sofia dead-panned, looking completely unamused by Calix’s actions. Calix nodded. “I know, that’s why I said I’d need her. This stuff looks straight out of the second war. Are you sure that the Red Room didn’t just steal all of old Hydra’s shit and claim it as their own?”

 

“Just do the damn procedure, you asshole.” Sofia rolled her eyes, and Calix’s lips pulled back into a small smile. She wasn’t nervous anymore. She was in a place where she felt secure now: she would be the first one hit if they were attacked, but she was also in a position to protect her family. Sofia had always been the over-protective mother badger of the group, always defending and protecting the others whether they wanted her to do so or not.

 

“Natalia, could you please lie down on the table?” Calix said, feeling incredibly awkward. He pulled out a pair of syringes from his bag. They contained a thick, pale blue liquid that glowed slightly underneath the lights. Natalia stared at the syringes for a moment, then looked over to Sofia. Sofia gave her younger sister a comforting smile. “Go on. He’s going to help you get better.”

 

Natalia nodded, and, without being asked to do so, pulled her shirts off over her head. She was left in a white tank top, and Calix could see just how thin she was. Calix wondered if Sofia was that underweight too, or if Natalia was just unable to eat like a normal person because of her disabilities.

 

Natalia walked over and got up on the table. She kept her green eyes on the syringes the whole time, even as she laid back down on the metal table and stretched her arms out so that Calix would be able to stick her with the Phoenix Protocol.

 

Calix prepped her forearm with some antiseptic, and then placed the needle above her vein. His eyes flicked up to her face. There was no fear there, just caution and the slightest bit of excitement. Natalia wanted this to work. She wanted to be normal. And Calix was terrified that she would never be normal. Because the Phoenix Protocol was sometimes a bit too powerful: sometimes, instead of just curing an illness or healing a wound, it brought one of Calix’s lab rats back from the dead.

 

But if this was what Natalia wanted, then Calix would do it. He’d been away for too long, so it was time for him to get his shit together and be the older brother Natalia had never gotten the chance to experience.

 

He took a deep breath. “Okay, this will probably hurt like a bitch. Nod when you’re ready for me to start, okay? Because once I start the injections, I can’t stop.”

 

Natalia closed her eyes, and her nostrils flared as she breathed. She opened them again and stared straight at Calix. Then she nodded. Calix said, “Okay. Here we go” and then pressed his thumb down, injecting her with the first dose. Then came seven milligrams of the anti-serum, to keep the effects down until Calix could get to the full dosage. Then the second dose, followed by another antiserum. Natalia’s jaw was clenched tightly, and Calix could see her struggling not to flinch away as Calix started with the third dose. He pulled out the final anti-serum dose, and as he injected her with it, he said, “There’s just one more after this, and it’s going to hurt a lot more than the rest. Just one more, and it’ll be over. You’re going to be okay, Natalia, I promise. You’re going to survive this.”

 

He pulled out the final syringe, which was almost completely filled with the Phoenix Protocol serum. Calix hated that he had to give the last dosage in such a large amount, but if he didn’t, then the anti-serum would cancel it out and the procedure would last for days. They didn’t have days. They probably didn’t even have hours, but Calix couldn’t stop now. He pressed his thumb down for the final time and injected her with the final part of the Phoenix Protocol.

 

Natalia screamed, an ear-piercing wail of agony and power that made Calix jump back in surprise. For a girl who had never used her voice in her whole life, she certainly had a set of vocal cords.

 

Sofia rushed forward, gun slung over her back and her eyes wide with fear. “Natalia! Natalia, no, no, no, please, you’re okay! You’re okay!”

 

The scream slowed down and eventually came to a stop, and Natalia stared, panting, at her two older siblings. She closed her eyes, and then opened them again. She reached out towards Sofia. “Your eyes… they’re different.”

 

“Yes, Natalia. They’re green. Yours are too.” Sofia looked like she was seconds away from breaking down and crying. Calix hadn’t known that Natalia was colourblind, but her seeing colour was a sure sign that the protocol had worked. Now they just had to get out of the Red Room without getting caught, and take Natalia home to where she could recover without interruption.

 

“And I can talk.” Natalia said, testing out her voice. She looked over to Calix. “So, it worked? I’m normal now?”

 

“We’ll see, but so far, you seem to be acting normally.” Calix said. He reached out slowly with his first two fingers and pressed them to Natalia’s neck, checking her pulse. Her skin was comfortably warm where he touched it, and she flinched back slightly at the touch. Her pulse was higher than a normal person’s would be, but that was to be expected. She’d gone through quite a shock, after all, what with some edited alien DNA floating around in her genetics now.

 

“What happens if I go bad?” Natalia asked. She didn’t sound afraid of the serum failing on her, and Calix wondered if that was because she was prepared to die. The Red Room had trained her for that, but so had her life: being ridden with illnesses and a shit immune system for fifteen years would make anyone feel that death was expected.  Natalia was still staring at Calix. “Will I hurt anyone if the Phoenix Protocol doesn’t work right?”

 

“I don’t know.” Calix said honestly. He’d done tests, but not on people because that was actually kind of unethical and, despite what everyone else said about him, Calix actually had some kind of a moral standing. Not much of one, but enough to know that testing science experiments on people who didn’t need a science experiment was rather rude. He let go of Natalia and started repacking his bag. He wasn’t dense enough to think that leaving any of his stuff here was a good idea. Calix didn’t trust anyone with his formulas, and he wasn’t going to start just because one had been successfully (for the moment) implemented onto a person. “But the truth is, if you become a danger to too many people, either Sofia or I will have to take you out. You’ve got a lot of new stuff flowing through your DNA right now, and a lot of it is still unstable. I’ll do everything I can to keep you from losing your mind, but the Phoenix Protocol isn’t a fail-proof serum. There are some side effects, and there is a chance that it could malfunction.”

 

Natalia made a face that looked similar to the one Sofia made any time Calix did something ridiculously awkward. “You could have told me that before you poked me with needles, Dr. Gordiyenko.”

 

“Hey, you said you were ready.” Calix said, putting his hands up instinctively. He didn’t really think that Natalia was going to attack him for that, but even so, it was always best to look as unthreatening as possible when someone showed any signs of aggression. Natalia didn’t attack him, though. She just sat there and watched as Calix packed up his things. She only began moving when Sofia told her to get dressed because they needed to leave as soon as possible.

 

That worried Calix a little. If Natali was still disassociating, then maybe the serum wasn’t as effective as Calix had thought it to be. Then again, disassociation was a mental issue, not a physical one, and mental issues were always more difficult to fix than physical ones. There was not cure for a mental disease that Calix knew of, and he was pretty aware of how debilitating mental issues could get.

 

Calix zipped up his bag and turned to Sofia. “I’m ready. Let’s get out of here before your friends realise that we’ve invaded their super-secret laboratory.”

 

“Good idea. Come on, Natalia. Time to go.” Sofia said. Natalia muttered something under her breath that could have been in Russian or another language. Calix supposed that, even though she hadn’t been able to speak up until five minutes ago, Natalia had still picked up on the multiple languages that Sofia and her team members spoke in. They probably hadn’t even realised that Natalia was listening, because she was so quiet and didn’t always make her presence known. Sofia had probably realised that her sister had been listening into the multi-lingual conversations, and had instructed Natalia on how to speak the various languages that Sofia had picked up during her time at Outre Academy.

 

Sofia led them back up the stairwell, but they never got out because there was a team of agents waiting for them at the top of the staircase. Sofia pulled her weapon, ready to kill her way out of the building like Calix knew she’d done hundreds of times before. She glared at the Russian man in the front of the pack of Red Room agents. “Stand down, and I’ll kill you quickly. Put up a fight, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

 

“Do you really want to risk your enlistment with the Red Room, Agent Kobrska?” The head agent sneered. He towered over Sofia’s five foot eight frame, but that didn’t deter her. It never had. “The Red Room is everywhere. If you hide, we will find you. If you try to leave the country, we will stop you and bring you back.”

 

“No you won’t. Because I will kill you.” Sofia said, and Calix knew she meant it. Sofia was a kind, comforting, motherly figure most of the time, but when she decided she wanted someone dead, they died. Quickly. Sofia didn’t waste time getting what she wanted, and these unnamed agents meant less to her than the rest of Russia. Sofia pressed her weapon against his chest, and he pressed his against hers. She raised her head, looking straight up into his cold eyes. “You remember who I am, correct? Do not think for a moment that motherhood has lessened that killer bitch, because the moment you start thinking of me as weak is the moment that you die from my bare hands.“

 

“Explain yourself, Sofia Kobrsk.” The agent said, suddenly changing his tactic. He must have realised that he wouldn’t be able to break her psyche, so he decided to skip the foreplay and go straight to what he wanted. “Why did you break into a laboratory with your retarded sister and… a Swedish physicist.”

 

So the agent didn’t know that Calix was Sofia and Natalia’s brother. That meant that he wasn’t very high up. Just a grunt.

 

Calix bit back a laugh. This guy and his whole team were in over their heads. They had no idea who they were challenging. This was going to be interesting.

 

“I’m not retarded, you—” Natalia said, stringing in a series of Italian curses that made both Calix and Sofia turn their heads. Sofia then turned her head to Calix, a pale eyebrow raised questioningly. Calix shook her head. “I swear, I did not teach her that. I don’t know where she picked that up. No fucking clue, I’m innocent, can we please go back to the unintelligent Red Room assholes who think they can actually tell us what to do?”

 

“Yes,” Sofia said, and turned back to the agents. She didn’t lower her weapon, and there was still a barrel pressed to her chest. “Dr. Gordyienko was merely helping Natalia get over her physical ailments, so if you wouldn’t mind letting us pass, I’d like to take my sister home and get some sleep.”

 

“Agent Kobrsk, you know that all medical operations must take place in the main laboratory, and not the cryo unit.” The agent looked both annoyed and terrified. “If we had needed the asset while you were in there playing doctor, the future of this nation would have been put at risk.”

 

“Please.” Natalia said, and Calix internally cringed. Apparently she had inherited both Calix and Sofia’s inability to know when to shut the fuck up and stay out of a conversation.  “This country’s in so much trouble, there’s no way the Winter Soldier could fix it all.”

 

“You little whore, shut the hell up.” One of the other agents turned his gun on Natalia and started firing at her. Sofia immediately pushed away from the head agent and fired at the attacker, shooting him down in three shots. She turned to Natalia, who was on the floor gripping her stomach. There was also a bullet in her leg and three in her arm, and she was going pale. Sofia grabbed her sister’s face, overcome with panic. “Natalia, no. No, please, you can’t leave me, not now. Please, no.”

 

“Oh, fucking shit.” Calix hissed under his breath, because he could already see the Protocol in action. Natalia’s arm wounds were healing, and the bullet in her leg was reappearing. Another twenty seconds later, and it popped out of her skin and hi the floor with a clink. The arm bullets and the one lodged in her stomach soon followed.

 

The Red Room agents, those that were still alive, all stared down at the fifteen year old girl on the floor. Sofia’s body went rigid, and then she slowly turned her head to Calix. In Italian, she asked, “Is this… normal?”

 

“Yes. That’s what’s supposed to happen.” Calix said, still in Italian. “The serum heals wounds… and, if I did it right, it’ll regrow her from death.”

 

“What the fuck.” Sofia muttered. “What the actual fuck, Calix. You’re telling me that not only does my sister spit out bullets, she’s also immortal? Calix, you can’t just pull something like that on someone!”

 

“Please stop arguing. It’s kind of nice to not have to worry about dying every single moment of my life.” Natalia said, her voice completely dead-pan. Her Italian was awkward, but she still managed to sound somewhat fluent. She placed her hand over Sofia’s. “And now you don’t have to worry about me as much. I won’t see death every time it gets cold, and I won’t need Mikhail to sneak me into the hospital every time I have a training session here.”

 

Sofia lowered her head. Calix could see that she was conflicted on how to react. Yes, the Phoenix Protocol had saved Natalia from what would have been an early end, but it had also stripped her of some of her humanity. Part of being human was doing everything to survive, no matter the cost. It was an instinct, and now Natalia didn’t need it. She could do anything without the fear of dying, or being hurt. That was terrifying, because what if she took it too far? Calix knew that there were some things that the rats hadn’t come back from (losing a limb completely, being ground zero for a bomb, decapitation), and he figured that Natalia would have those same restrictions. She’d be fearless, but what’s a human without fear? A dead human, generally.

 

“Hand her over, Agent Kobrska.” The head agent said, and suddenly both Sofia and Calix had guns pointed at their heads. “A person with that ability should not be allowed to walk freely. Our scientists will need to see to her to make sure that she is worth our time, and then we will come back to you with our results.”

 

“Trust me, she’s worth your time.” Calix stood up. “She’s worth every minute you’re alive. But do you want to know what’s even more worthy of your time? The serum that made her like this. I made it, and it’s only been calibrated to her DNA, so unless you have me, you won’t get anywhere with your other doctors.”

 

The head agent narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying?”

 

“I’m making you an offer.” Calix stepped forward, and the weapons followed him as he approached the leader of the team. “My name is Calix Gordyienko, and I live in Sweden. I’ll give you the formula and assist you in whatever you need—from my home, not in this hellhole—if you give Natalia her freedom.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk fanfiction with me on my tumblr: the--renegade--angels.tumblr.com


	9. Welcome to the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for this taking so long, please don't hate me for it. I've been dealing with some really shit depression the past week so I haven't exactly been up to being productive, but hopefully that will subside soon and I'll return.

They landed in a field of dead grapevines. The vines were covered in a frost that looked like it wasn’t going to go away any time soon. TJ wondered why anyone would consider starting a vineyard in a place that got this cold, but it wasn’t really his place to judge. He just followed Williams and Wolf out of the helicopter and across the frozen field. Margaret was a half-step behind him, her finger on the trigger of a gun Wolf had given her, ready to fire at anyone who attacked.

 

Another ten minutes later, and the four were standing outside of a large manour house that looked like it hadn’t been lived in for ten years. TJ shoved his hands further into his pockets to try and keep himself from getting cold. Apparently the Phoenix Protocol wasn’t a warming mechanism. It would have been nice if was, though. Then TJ wouldn’t be shivering in this borrowed dark red leather jacket that Margaret had said he could wear until they could get him his own on the run wardrobe.

 

Not that TJ wanted to actually be on the run. The duffel bag of easily exchangeable clothes was just a precaution in case Hydra dared to come after them again.

 

Wolf knocked on the door, and they waited. Wolf told them that it was the only way to be sure that they wouldn’t face an ambush. While most people didn’t know about this particular base, there were enough exceptions that Calix had had the security ramped up to the point that waiting outside in the freezing wind was a better option than sneaking in.

 

The more TJ learned about this Calix guy, the less realistic Wolf’s assessment on the man seemed. Everything about this place read paranoid mad scientist-slash-spy guy.

 

The door opened to reveal a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair. Her face was more of a ruined recreation of a face than anything, with burns everywhere. If TJ hadn’t spent the last few hours surrounded by people who looked like they’d survived a few explosions, he would have recoiled in surprise. The blonde woman didn’t seem to notice any of TJ’s lingering unease, and instead opened the door fully. “ _Kommt, Wolfchen. Er wartete auf ihnen_.”

 

“ _Jaja, ich weiss_.” Wolf waved her off as he slid into the manour. “ _Die Hubschlager war langsam, nicht meine problem_.”

 

The woman rolled her eyes at Wolf’s comment, and then closed the door. She watched as the four of them took off their jackets and hats. The three trained agents all kept their shoes on, so TJ followed suit, even though the blonde woman was only wearing a pair of pink plaid socks, no shoes. Her eyes suddenly locked on TJ. She smirked, and TJ felt like he was an antelope about to be eaten by a lion or something like that. “Hello, TJ Hammond. How’re you enjoying the terrors of being around a bunch of secret badasses?”

 

“It’s different.” TJ shrugged. He didn’t know who this woman was, and her lack of any real accent didn’t help him place where she was from. There was a little bit of German, some Brooklyn, some Russian, and a tad of English all jumbled into one voice. It was vaguely disconcerting.

 

She nodded. “My name’s Liesel, by the way. You probably haven’t heard of me, which is fine, but I steal _Scheiss_ all the time, and when I was eighteen, the EU framed me and my cousin for a terrorist attack. It was an interesting senior year.”

 

“Is there some kind of competition between you guys on who has the most ridiculous James Bond story to tell whenever they meet a non-spy person?” TJ asked the group as a whole. All of them seemed determined to astound him with the crazy shit they’d done in their past, and TJ wanted to know if they were peacocking or if that was just how people introduced themselves in the spy world.

 

Williams laughed and shook his head. “Not, that’s just Wolf and Liesel. But if you want to hear some interesting—and completely classified—stories, then you need to stick around for the Gordiyenko family Christmas. That’s when shit gets interesting.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” TJ said.

 

Margaret excused herself and TJ, reminding all of them why TJ was in an abandoned (somewhat) vineyard in Austria and not at home in his own room, probably brooding over the meaning of life or some depressing shit like that. Liesel, Wolf, and Williams said goodbye and headed up the stairwell to do discuss some plan for some heist that Liesel was trying to pull off in Shanghai. TJ didn’t even bother asking, because he figured that it would just be better if he didn’t know what illegal shenanigans these people thought up in their spare time.

 

Margaret led him down a set of stairs hidden below the main staircase. The basement looked like any other basement: all concrete and shitty lighting. Their footsteps echoed as they walked, but they didn’t have to walk very far before a door opened and a man in all black stepped out. The room he had stepped out of was brightly lit, and TJ found himself squinting to try and see the man.

 

“Mr. Hammond, Margaret. Hey. Um, just come in, I’ll clear everything up and then we can start making sure that Mr. Hammond isn’t going to go batshit on everyone.” The man said as TJ and Margaret got to the door. TJ could see his face now, and it was incredibly pale. Like, the guy was a freaking albino, with the white-blonde hair and blood red eyes. Again, actually a mad scientist.

 

The man, Calix, was talking to Margaret as he moved around the room (which looked like an operating room and scared TJ a little because he did not want to get cut up and experimented on any more today). “Vital signs, normal, right? Heartbeat should be faster, pupils are expected to be dilated—though with him it could be the cocaine, since you said he was using again—and skin will be warm. Skin’s always warm, that’s part of the drug’s rebirthing property. But yeah, he’s still where he should be, right?”

 

“Thomas is fine.” Margaret said. “I just thought that bringing him here would be a good idea. You can explain this better than I can, and you’ll be able to answer any questions.”

 

“Yeah, speaking of questions, what the hell?” TJ jumped in verbally. Both Calix and Margaret turned their attention to him. Calix’s eyes were wide, like he’d just walked in on a wild animal and was about to be attacked. His face immediately went blank as he waited for TJ to continue. TJ glanced over at the cot in the corner, which had a life support machine sitting next to it. “Am I really immortal now? As in I can’t die save for some horrific incident where I get blown up into a thousand tiny pieces?”

 

“Yes.” Calix said. “You’ll also notice that you won’t get sick any more, or if you do, the illness won’t last longer than an hour. I have no idea if it will keep you from being able to get high, since the Phoenix Protocol hasn’t been tested on too many people… but I think it might.” Calix paused what he was doing and made a face. “I probably shouldn’t be suggesting that. Anyway. I’m going to just check your vitals, make sure that you’re stable—or as stable as anyone in your position could be—and then you’ll be free to roam around the building.”

 

“Do you need me to step out?” Margaret asked. TJ could tell that she didn’t want to, but she would if it was necessary. Calix shook his head. “No. Just, don’t get too close, alright?”

 

Margaret nodded her head and stepped back, watching as Calix pulled out various forms of medical equipment and laid them all out on a small side table. He told TJ to go sit on the cot, and TJ did. TJ switched from watching Calix work to watching Margaret, who looked uneasy. TJ wondered if her request to go outside had been selfish, or if she really did think it would be better if TJ didn’t have an audience for whatever was going to happen next.

 

Calix took TJ’s pulse, his temperature, and a blood sample. He then pulled up a chair and sat down in it with a clipboard in his lap. “I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Just answer them as accurately as possible.”

 

TJ nodded, thinking that this wasn’t so different from his visits to the doctor when he was a child. “Okay.”

 

“What’s the last thing you remember before you woke up in the Hydra facility?” Calix asked, and that was a plot twist because TJ had been ready to bullshit about his feelings, just like he did every time some doctor asked him how he was doing. They should never have to ask; it was generally pretty obvious that TJ was never okay.

 

He swallowed and tugged on the too long sleeves of the leather jacket. He didn’t want to admit what he had been doing before everything had gone blank. But Calix was waiting and Margaret probably already knew (she’d been watching him for a few months, after all. She’d probably figured out what he had been doing in his room). TJ wet his lips. “I left the dinner table because I was feeling… um, stressed, I guess, and I went up to my room just to get away from all the tenseness. The, uh, the Triskelion had just been under attack, and my mom was trying to balance her diplomatic shit with her dealing with family shit. And I just kinda got forgotten, so I left.”

 

“And were there Hydra agents in your room when you got there?” Calix said, his expression darkening.  Having Hydra agents in the Secretary of State’s private house meant that there was a serious security breach in the Washington area, more than everyone thought.

 

TJ shrugged. “Not exactly. I mean, I was kind of getting—” he looked over to Margaret, and her face was a blank slate. TJ didn’t think she’d judge him for this, but really? TJ was kind of a total failure when it came to staying clean. This whole Hydra fiasco had just exacerbated the situation. “I was high when they knocked me out, so I don’t know how they got in. Sorry.”

 

“There’s no reason to blame yourself, TJ.” Calix said, and leaned back to grab a piece of paper that had just printed out. His red eyes scanned over the document, and he glanced up at TJ. Calix’s expression was unreadable. “These people are often sneakier than we give them credit for. But, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing odd in your bloodstream, save for the cocaine and the Phoenix Protocol. You should be good to go home in a few days.”

 

“Why do I have to wait?” TJ asked. He wanted to go home to his family and reassure them that he was okay, but he also didn’t want to have to deal with the Triskelion attack again. That, and President Garcetti’s plane crashing (also Hydra, of course), was too much for him. He needed a break, and ironically enough, being holed up in super-secret spy base in Austria was a pretty good break. “Can’t I go home now?”

 

“Thomas, you’re basically a mutant. If you don’t have a story for the media, the government is going to try and lock you up like a wild animal.” Margaret said angrily. TJ scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion. Since when was the government interested in locking up mutants? They hadn’t done anything when New York had been under attack from aliens, so why were they getting involved now?

 

Beside him, Calix rolled his eyes and let out an annoyed groan. “Are you shitting me? No offense, TJ, but your mom’s people need to get their heads out of their asses and realise that locking up genetically altered beings isn’t going to solve the problem. Hell, locking up people who don’t qualify as ‘normal’ generally causes the problems.”

 

“I agree, it’s a bad move on Collier’s part, but he’ll only be more inclined to go through with the bill if he finds out that Thomas has the Protocol in him.” Margaret folded her arms over her chest. She turned towards TJ. “You know how your mother and Collier have a rivalry, right? One of my contacts said it was because Collier had ties with Hydra and knew about your relation to Sargent Barnes. Apparently he plans to either convert your mother or get her completely out of the way. You coming out as a mutant would work with the latter.”

 

“So then what’s the plan?” TJ leaned forward on his elbows. Margaret and Calix exchanged glances and a few facial expression changes before Margaret’s blue gaze fell back on TJ. “I’m going to act as your bodyguard, under the pretense that you’re being targeted by Hydra. You are, but not because they want you dead.”

 

“You can’t die in public, so if Margaret takes a bullet for you, you let her.” Calix interrupted Margaret. “No one can know that you’re part of the Phoenix Protocol, at least until we find out what the verdict is on the Registration Bill. You won’t be going to any kind of rehab; those places are all too isolated and I don’t know if Margaret can get clearance to follow you there, since she’s already a friend. We’ll also try to get you an apartment near Margaret and Mark’s, but not too obviously close. We need you to be within reach of them at all times, since there’s a high chance of Hydra coming after you again.”

 

“So, I’m basically on the spy version of house arrest?” TJ asked Calix. Calix nodded, slowly. TJ wasn’t exactly impressed with that decision, though he knew that it was probably for the best. Hydra wasn’t just some eager reporter who wanted a riveting story for the papers. Hydra was a freaking terrorist organization who wanted him to become their next test subject. He leaned back in the cot, staring up at the ceiling. “Great. Thanks for creating this Protocol thing, by the way. I can tell that it is going exactly as you wanted it to.”

 

“No, TJ, it didn’t.” Calix said. TJ didn’t bother to lift his head from where he was laying down. The older man continued. “The Protocol was supposed to act as a deus ex machina for people who were disabled, or terminally sick. Hydra, the Red Room, they were never supposed to get their hands on it. But… mistakes were made, people—meaning me—were arrogant, and the Phoenix Protocol became yet another secret weapon in the Cold War. And since the war isn’t won yet, the weapon’s still in play.”

 

TJ sat up then, his head swiveling from Margaret to Calix. “Whoa, hold up. Did you just say that the Cold War isn’t over yet?”

 

“He did.” Margaret nodded. “The Cold War never ended in the intelligence community, though the opponents have changed over the years. Hydra’s our current enemy, though there are a lot of former Outré Academy attendees who are sided with Hydra, so our side doesn’t have definite borders. The threat is real, Mr. Hammond, and the enemies are everywhere. The only reason the world doesn’t know just how much danger they’re in is because they’d all go into a panic. It would be another Red Scare, and I think we all know just how horribly _that_ went last time.”

 

“Okay. So, I just keep quiet, don’t die, and hang around with a pair of dangerous spies. Sounds easy enough.” TJ shrugged. Except he knew it wouldn’t be easy. He was now in on the biggest threat the world had ever known, and he had to stay silent about it. TJ was nowhere near Margaret’s or Calix’s level of intelligence, but he was a part of it all nonetheless. And he would be a part of it until he died, which, considering the alien serum flowing through his genetics, would probably be a very long time from now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, please comment or at least leave a kudo if you enjoyed it.


	10. Me and my sister... we're gonna rule Russia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The making of a legend. Actually, of multiple legends.
> 
> (Title taken from the Legend trailer, because I am trash and because I could see Sofia and Calix as a Russia AU version of the Kray brothers)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is back to the 80's and Calix/Sofia/Natalia, and it mentions a character who will be showing up in one of the stories that I haven't yet published.

Sweden, 1983.

Calix rolled over on his mattress, reaching out towards where he was sure Ven would be curled around his pillow. There wasn’t anyone there, and so Calix’s eyes flew open and his other hand reached behind the mattress for his handgun. He sat up, pushing his white blonde hair back from his face. “Ven?”

 

“Morning, Calix.” Ven appeared in the doorway to their bedroom, fully dressed and with a confident smirk on his face. The smirk fell when he realised that Calix was armed. Ven shook his head and crossed the room. He took the gun from Calix’s hand and kissed Calix on the forehead.  Ven placed the gun back where Calix always kept it. He ran his fingers through Calix’s hair slowly, thoughtfully, and hummed something incomprehensible and Italian. Calix leaned his head against Ven’s chest. “I know, I know. It’ll be over soon, though. They said they’d let me go in a year, and it’s been ten months already.”

 

“Yes, you’ll be out of the Red Room in two months, but Calix, that doesn’t mean you’ll stop being paranoid about everything in two months.” Ven said. He was right, of course, but Calix didn’t want to admit it. It had taken Ven three and a half months to finally realise that his father wasn’t going to burst through Calix’s front door and kill Calix because he somehow knew that Ven was in love with the Russian man. Who knew how long Calix would always assume the worst about everything?

 

Ven nosed against the top of Calix’s head, and Calix leaned his head back so that he could kiss his lover properly. They kissed for a moment, before Ven stood up and ran a final hand through Calix’s hair. “I made breakfast, and I’m not leaving until you eat.”

 

“Ven, I don’t have a problem.” Calix fell back onto his bed, his mind instantly skipping ahead to all the things he wanted to fix today. He rolled over on his side, stretching out in a way that exposed more of his body. Ven looked unimpressed. “Calix, Sofia called me yesterday while you were in the basement. She’s coming here today on a plane, which means that whatever happened isn’t good. So eat your Goddamn breakfast.”

 

Calix got up and did as he was told, pulling on a dress shirt before he left the bedroom. Even though Sofia knew the extent of his and Ven’s relationship, Calix didn’t think that his neighbours needed to know, and so he kept himself decent outside of the bedroom.

 

Breakfast smelled good, whatever it was, but Calix went straight for the coffee first. He wasn’t sure how Ven still managed to get it directly from Italy, but it was the richest, darkest brew he’d ever had in his life, and far beyond the shit he used to force himself through. He poured himself a cup and leaned against the counter, watching as Ven finished cooking.

 

The two of them ate mostly in silence, occasionally speaking softly in one of their many languages. Calix knew that they were both thinking about the same thing: Sofia’s unexpected appearance. Sofia never travelled by plane unless it was urgent. She preferred to stay on land, where she didn’t have to worry about falling out of the sky. Calix had never understood her fear (no one shot down planes unless they were military), so he generally took a plane to Russia.

 

They finished and did the dishes (Calix had lived on his own for too long before Ven to be able to leave anything in a mess), constantly bumping against each other. It was their subtle way of showing affection, reminding the other that they weren’t alone anymore, and that they didn’t have to suffer in silence.

 

Once they were finished, Ven had to leave for his work. He had snatched a job at the local secondary school, teaching Italian to a fuckton of fifteen year olds who were still only thinking with their hormones and nothing else. Ven always laughed about it, because he was only four years older than them, but they still treated him like he was some scary foreign teacher. That was probably because they knew who his house mate was: the city’s crazy recluse, Dr. Calix Gordienko. Anyone willing to share the same space as Calix was a complete badass, at least in the eyes of Ven’s fifteen year olds.

 

Calix didn’t know exactly what Ven’s work entailed, only that he came home in the evening and came down to the basement a few hours later to vent his hatred of children to Calix. And yet Ven still loved those kids like they were his own younger siblings.

 

Once Ven was gone, Calix headed straight for the basement, taking a collection of weapons down with him and turning on the security measures before he left the main part of the house. He knew that it was his paranoia working overtime, but he still feared for the day that the Red Room agents stormed his house and took him away. He feared even more for Ven when Ven was at work, because Ven’s school wasn’t protected. Ven only had his own person for protection, and Calix knew that that wouldn’t be enough if the Red Room wanted to hurt Calix.

 

Those people were brutal. They hadn’t given Natalia her freedom like they’d promised, and when Calix had threatened to shut down the Phoenix Protocol program completely, one of the agents had brought up a screen with Calix and Ven’s house on it, and told Calix that the second he quit, there’d be a missile headed for his house. And for Ven.

 

So Calix stayed, and he watched as the Red Room agents forced Natalia and a group of teenage girls to try and seduce the Winter Soldier. The girls had been picked because they were all skilled, and some of them were like Natalia in that they’d been experimented on. Of course, because the world hated Calix and his sisters, Natalia had been the one to successfully break through the Soldier’s programming and get him to act like a semi-normal human being. Calix wasn’t sure how his sister had done it, or why, but he knew that Sofia was not impressed.

 

Sofia had apparently attempted to break into the cell where Natalia and the Winter Soldier were interacting, claiming that she would kill the Asset if he so much as touched Natalia. She’d been held back and had eventually calmed down when one of the female agents told her that anything that happened between the Soldier and Natalia would have to be consensual, at least on Natalia’s part.

 

That seemed kind of twisted, that a sixteen year old girl could have full control of a sexual situation when a full-grown man got none. But the Winter Soldier was not just any full-grown man. He was Hydra’s version of the super-soldier, and if the Red Room decided to mate him with Calix’s version of the super-soldier serum, then so be it. Calix couldn’t stop them, and neither could Sofia, even though she desperately wanted to.

 

From the basement, Calix heard someone knocking on his door. If it was one of his neighbours, Calix would ignore them, but if it was Sofia… then she knew he’d put the security measures in place and was actually showing some restraint instead of just storming down to the basement and telling Calix off for whatever had happened. Deciding to respect his sister’s patience, Calix flicked off the security measures and turned on the basic security camera he’d put on the door to his house. Sure enough, it was Sofia, dressed impeccably and looking like she would kill anyone who tried to touch her.

 

Calix sighed and stood up from his lab table. He walked over and opened the door to the basement, and then called up, “Fia, down here!”

 

“Get up here, Calix.” She shouted back, in Russian. “We’re not doing this in your basement.”

 

Calix exited the basement. There was no point holding off the inevitable, and whatever this was, it involved his sister somehow. That was more important than trying to improve the Phoenix Protocol so that it could be used on anyone. Much more important. He barely remembered to close the basement door, and actually had to back track down to close it again. Sofia was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, dressed in a double breasted black jacket and a series of visible weapons. Her hair was tied in a bun and she looked like she had just gotten off of her train. She stared down at Calix as he walked up the staircase.

 

She didn’t say anything when he got to her level. She just narrowed her eyes and turned away, walking back around to the front of the house. She stood outside the front door and watched him as he unlocked the door and deactivated the security measures. She stepped in ahead of Calix and continued her staring until he closed the door. Calix turned around and spread his arms. “Well, you’re here. What’s going on in Russia?”

 

“Natalia died, Calix.” Sofia said. No bullshit, no beating around the bush, just the facts. It was something that Calix hated about his sister, except when she dropped bombs on their enemies. Most interrogators beat around the bush to try and get the information from someone they wanted, but Sofia wasn’t like that. She laid everything out on the table, as bluntly as possible. The thing with Sofia’s interrogation tactics was that she rarely had to use her voice to get what she wanted. She knew how to silently torture answers out of someone if she had the time to do so. But when Sofia was fed up with someone’s existence, that’s when she opened her mouth. That’s when the target would know that they were screwed beyond saving.

 

So Calix did not consider himself weak for falling down to the floor when his sister said that. His legs splayed out in front of him, his hands sitting limply between his thighs. Calix stared up at his sister, silently begging that she was joking, that this was just some kind of test. “She can’t die, though… the Protocol… it would bring her back, wouldn’t it?”

 

“You’d think, but you’d be wrong.” Sofia turned away from her brother and began scanning his house. Another tactic: don’t look the subject in the eye when breaking them, because they’ll be able to read your face if they can see all of it. Always move, so that they have to follow your movements and can’t just sit there and disassociate. Sofia ran her fingertips across the kitchen table, over the chair where Ven usually sat. “Natalia died while giving birth to her and the Asset’s daughter, who you’ll be programming into the Phoenix Protocol as well. However, Natalia did not stay dead for long. Approximately four minutes after her time of death was recorded, Natalia began exhibiting strange signs of life. Her body contorted itself as though she was receiving some kind of electric shock, and then the oddest thing happened.”

 

Sofia turned from where she’d been messing with the table cloth and stared straight into Calix’s eyes. She blamed him for everything, and he knew it. “Natalia’s body shed its skin, and within the remains, a newborn baby was found. Your serum worked, Calix, but it worked too well. Now the Phoenix Protocol project will be receiving two new recruits, a Natalia Romanova, as well as Natalia’s daughter, who has yet to be named.”

 

“Sofia, I’m so sor—” Calix started, but Sofia cut him off, continuing to talk as though she hadn’t heard him at all. She was changing her tactics from a more fear-inducing, blunt approach to something manipulative; she wanted to make Calix feel unnecessary, as though he was just a pawn to be played with.

 

She knelt down in front of him. “Your work for the Red Room has been well-received, Dr. Gordienko.  What you’ve done to Natalia will shape the next generation. But, before you can return to your happy world of Carlos Veneziano and cute cabins in Sweden, they need you to do this one thing. Tomorrow, you and I will fly out to Russia and you will calibrate the Protocol for Natalia’s daughter. Tomorrow is the last day you and I will be siblings, Calix Gordienko, because while the Red Room may be impressed with what you have done, I am not. You are not my brother, and Natalia does not remember me as her sister, so after tomorrow, I will become no one, and you… you will become the face of the future.”

 

Calix leaned back, more terrified of the woman in front of him than he had been of anyone else in his life. Sofia gripped Calix’s chin in her hand. “But when you are praised for winning the Cold War, remember this: I started this bloodshed, and so help me God, I will end it with your head on my knife if you drag anyone besides Natalia and her daughter into your Phoenix Protocol. The Red Room cannot save you from me, Calix Gordienko. I am a legend, and I am feared. I am Sofia Kobrsk, and I will not stand for anyone getting between my family and what they deserve out of life.”

 

She let go of him and stood up. Sofia stared down at Calix. “Think about your choices, Dr. Gordienko. You’re already expected to drag my niece into your mess. Don’t be stupid enough to think that you can safely bring in anyone else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: Natalia is the Black Widow, though I did change her backstory a little to tie it into the Phoenix Protocol arc. I might be doing a one-shot that explains her life better, but right now I don't have anything planned concretely. (Is that even a word)
> 
> I also apologise for not updating. I'm now in college, so the pas month has been one large adjustment period.


	11. Family Always Knows First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark and Margaret discuss their future, both with their child and with their jobs as spies. Being a young couple is not as easy as the movies make it out to be.

Margaret found Mark in Liesel’s old tree house. He was alone, smoking a cigarette and speaking into his earpiece in a low, hushed voice. Margaret knocked on the floorboards, and Mark whirled around. Upon realising that it was only Margaret, he let out a laugh. Into the earpiece, he said, “Sorry, Joan, Margaret just randomly appeared in the outpost. I should probably go, but thanks for keeping me updated on things.”

 

Mark tapped his ear and then turned his full attention to his fiancée. Margaret pulled herself up fully into the treehouse and let out a breath that she’d been holding ever since she’d seen Garcetti’s plane crash into the ocean. To think that the president had died only three days ago… it was startling. Even with her background, Margaret was finding herself a little shell-shocked at all the things that had been occurring in her life recently. She could only imagine the trauma that TJ would go through when the reality of his situation finally hit him.

 

Mark slid down and sat opposite her. He reached his hands out and took Margaret’s in them, rubbing his thumbs soothingly over the back of her hands. “Talk to me.”

 

“It feels like my whole world is collapsing in on itself.” Margaret started. “Just… everything I founded myself in has been dying away, and I know I should be more worried about what this is going to do to me, but I can’t help but fear for Thomas. He was already relapsing when the crash happened… when the dust settles from this, I’m afraid we’re going to lose him permanently.”

 

“You don’t know that, Margaret.” Mark said. Margaret’s head shot up, and she was ready to prove Mark’s dense comment wrong, but he shook his head. “No, listen to me: you don’t know how TJ is going to react to this. No one does. Sure, we know that he’s got depressive tendencies and has a history of getting suicidal when shit hits the fan, but he’s a living, breathing person. And that means he’s going to inevitably screw with our psyche sometimes. This, this whole Phoenix Protocol thing, it could be one of those times. Hell, it probably will be.”

 

Margaret narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”

 

“Because, even though I haven’t properly me the guy yet, I’ve heard whispers from Liesel and W-squared.” Mark said, glancing out the window of the abandoned tree house. It over-looked the whole vineyard, and in the distance, the couple could see the roof of the Edelweiss manour. The place looked almost peaceful, save for the military helicopter parked off to the side, in a clump of ruined grape vines. Margaret drew her attention back to the blond haired man in front of her as Mark continued talking. “TJ’s taking this surprisingly well for someone who’s never seen a man die before in his life. Sure, that might be because he hasn’t had time to figure out what the fuck just happened, but think about it: some people are better adjusted to dealing with mass fatalities, others are better at dealing with political fall-outs. Maybe TJ sucks at the latter but owns the former.”

 

“I hope you’re right, for everyone’s sake.” Margaret said, and kissed him. She had needed some kind of grounding ever since the plane crash. Margaret hadn’t expected to feel any panic while the plane fell out of the air, but she had, and that panic had caused her to freak out more. She wasn’t supposed to be afraid of dying; she’d been trained to accept death as a possibility in every situation, and yet, on the plane, she had feared for her life. She’d also feared for what would happen to Mark and Vivian if she died. Mark wouldn’t be able to claim legal guardianship of Vivian because she wasn’t biologically his, and so Vivian would have been thrown into foster care.

 

Margaret didn’t want her daughter to have to go through that (Mark had grown up and orphan and promised that Vivian would never have to be without proper parentage), and so she’d panicked.

Hearing Mark’s voice on the other end of the comms unit hadn’t helped, because hearing him made it seem like she would never get to see him ever again, and it reminded her just how far away her family was and how close she was to death.

 

This, though, having Mark’s hands on her face and being able to touch him, was what she needed. She let him hold onto her for longer than was usual, but pulled back once she felt safe again. Mark watched her, his dark blue eyes wide with something unreadable in them. Margaret reached out and brushed his hair away from his face. “I’m glad to be home, but we should probably head back inside. It seems a bit irresponsible to leave Vi in the hands of Wolf and Williams for too long. She might start picking up a new language.”

 

“Part of a new language, you mean.” Mark said, and Margaret nodded. Wolf had a tendency to spew off German curses like they were his variation of oxygen, and neither Mark nor Margaret thought that Vivian was old enough to fully appreciate the correct usage of Wolf’s language. So the two of them got up and went back down the tree, Margaret first. They discussed various things as they walked back across the vineyard. Mark explained that the entirety of the United States had gone into a lockdown, and that his and Vivian’s plane had been the last one allowed to leave the country for the past sixty-four hours.

 

Garcetti had been confirmed dead, and the country was on high alert, searching for whoever had taken TJ Hammond in the chaos of the Hydra incident. Mark suggested that Margaret at least get in contact with the Secretary of State to let her know that her son wasn’t dead, and Margaret agreed that doing so would be a good idea. She just didn’t know if TJ would want to be present when Margaret called his mother. Margaret knew that TJ’s relationship with his parents was unstable at best, and so she didn’t want to push TJ into doing something that he wasn’t comfortable with.

 

The sun had set on the horizon by the time they’d gotten back to the manour. Mark let them in, calling out to anyone listening that they weren’t invading, and Margaret closed the door behind her fiancé, not even annoyed by his outburst. It was mandatory; if they didn’t announce their presence, there was a high chance of one or both of them getting killed by some of Calix’s security measures.

 

“Mom!” Vivian called out from the top of the staircase. Margaret’s head shot up and she saw her daughter dressed in school clothes and standing beside Liesel. Vivian ran down the stairs and into her mother’s arms, grabbing onto Margaret as though the young woman was her life support. Margaret supposed that, at the beginning of Vivian’s existence, Margaret had been her life support. Vivian let go of Margaret and stared up at her with wide amber eyes. “Are you okay? Dad was scared—he wouldn’t say he was, but I knew—and so I was scared, and then when you called him he cried, and he never cries, not even in all the sad movies, and also the president died and I heard you say that you were protecting the president and I thought that maybe you were dead too because you wouldn’t let the president die without protecting him, and I just… I missed you.”

 

“I missed you too, Vi.” Margaret said, burying her face into her daughter’s hair. “I know I promised not to leave you, and I know I broke that promise too. I’m sorry, but… Vi… there’s something that Mark and I need to tell you now, before it’s too late and you get hurt because we were keeping a secret from you.”

 

Vivian looked up at her mother with childish wonder, and Margaret realised that she’d be stripping it all away in a few moments. “What is it, Mom?”

 

“Mark and I… Liesel and her family as well… we’re all spies.” Margaret said. Liesel muttered something in German from behind Margaret, probably along the lines of “don’t drag me into this, I’m not her mother,” but Margaret didn’t know enough German to be able to properly translate it. So she just ignored Liesel and focused on her daughter. Vivian’s face was lit up with excitement; of course she thought that having spies for parents was the coolest thing ever. Spies were everywhere in the media now, and so every kid, no matter how old they were, wondered what it would be like to have secret agent parents. It would suck, as Margaret would have to explain to her daughter.

 

Margaret knelt down to get to Vivian’s height. “I know what you’re thinking, that this is going to be all fun and games like we’re living in a movie, but it’s not. I almost died yesterday, and Mark spends most of his time outside of the apartment trying to not get shot. What Mark and I do is very dangerous, Vi, and we kept it from you because we didn’t want you to get dragged into a life you never chose to have.”

 

“Then why are you telling me your secret?” Vivian asked. She was always quicker than everyone thought she was, so Margaret wasn’t surprised that Vivian had pointed out the flaw in Margaret’s explanation. Margaret glanced up at Mark, who shook his head. “You’re doing fine on your own; I’m not going to step on your moment.”

 

“Thanks, Mark.” Margaret dead-panned. Liesel let out a single laugh; at least one of them was enjoying this whole exchange. Then again, Liesel hadn’t needed to explain to her younger brother why she was always disappearing off for extended periods of time. Before Liesel and Wolf had been involved with Outre Academy, Liesel and her two older brothers had been employed by the American branch of the Italian mob, acting as black market sellers in New York City. Wolf had grown up surrounded by crime; he had always known the dangers of the life he and his family lived.

 

Margaret focused back on Vivian. “I’m telling you this because I used to work for SHIELD before SHIELD became corrupt, and my last assignment was to protect a very powerful woman and her family. When the president died, someone kidnapped this woman’s son, and I had to get him back.”

 

“Did you?” Vivian interrupted her mother. Margaret could tell that the nine year old was completely captured by what her mother was saying. “Did you save him from the bad guys?”

 

“Yes, Thomas is alive. He’s here, actually, being assessed by Calix.” Margaret said. She was thankful for Calix’s cooperation. Calix had been the one to get in contact with Margaret while she frantically tried to track down Elaine Barrish and her two sons and secure them. Calix had been the one to suggest the reason for Hydra’s interest in the Secretary and her family, and explain how the Phoenix Protocol had come into play. Margaret knew that Calix wasn’t one to share information freely unless it was absolutely necessary for someone’s survival, so when he had said that she needed to find TJ Hammond immediately, Margaret had done what she was trained to do.

 

She’d had to kill her way through at least one hundred Hydra agents to find TJ, but Vivian didn’t need to know that. Better for Vivian to think that her parents were cool movie spies than the cold-hearted killers that Margaret knew she and Mark could become.

 

Vivian looked around as though she would somehow be able to see TJ in the shadows. “Can I see him? Thomas whoever? I’ve never met a celebrity before, and he’s gotta be pretty important if the bad guys wanted to take him.”

 

“Thomas is pretty important.” Liesel said off-handedly. Liesel barely qualified as an American, as she had been born in Germany and had only spent six years in New York City before returning back to Europe and eventually being adopted by Calix. She wasn’t exactly sympathetic to TJ and his issues, since she’d probably only heard the worst of the rumours surrounding the former first son. Liesel must have noticed that Margaret was giving her an unimpressed look, because she threw her hands up and said, “What? He is! And not because of the… um… things… but because of the whole Barnes thing. Calix filled me in while you and Mark were using the treehouse for whatever young couples do in tree houses.”

 

“We were discussing TJ’s future, now that he’s a part of all this.” Mark said, throwing his arms out to motion towards the whole of the building. Mark knew about TJ’s part in the Phoenix Protocol, but neither he nor Margaret knew if Liesel had been made aware, and they didn’t want TJ’s new abilities to be spread farther than they had to be. He was just a normal person, after all, and he hadn’t asked for any of this to happen to him.

 

Besides, Margaret could distinctly remember what had happened the last few times TJ’s personal life had been unceremoniously tossed out into the public spotlight. While Margaret knew that any suicide attempt now wouldn’t be effective, she feared for TJ’s mental state if he did successfully kill himself, only to wake up minutes later and be completely fine. Everyone else would consider it a miracle, but for TJ, whose mind seemed to prefer death to life, it would be reawakening into nightmare after nightmare, with no end in sight.

 

“What about my future?” TJ called out from the top of the basement stairs. He seemed pretty level-headed for someone who had just figured out that the world wanted him dead but would never be able to succeed.  He closed the door to the basement and leaned against it. “Calix said I was okay, by the way. I’m not going to try and kill you guys or anything vaguely psychopathic like that.”

 

“Well that’s always a good thing to mention in front of a child.” Liesel said, her mouth twisting up into another smirk. TJ noticed Vivian then, who had been silently watching the exchanges between the adults. Her eyes widened as she took in TJ standing there in front of the door. Her mouth opened slightly. “Oh! I know you!”

 

“You do?” TJ asked uncertainly. Vivian nodded, her hair bouncing wildly as her head bobbed up and down. “Yeah! Your mom tried to be president but she didn’t make it.”

 

TJ blinked, and looked over at Margaret, silently questioning whether she had planned for Vivian to glaze over all of the shit storms TJ had had to go through in the past few years. Margaret hadn’t had any input on what Vivian could or could not bring up; she was glad, though, that Vivian didn’t seem to know about the suicide attempts or any of TJ’s drug problems. Margaret was sure that Vivian would figure it all out eventually, but maybe by then she’d be able to realise that there was more to TJ than just some sad gay junkie with too much money in his pocket.

 

Liesel cleared her throat. “So, I’ve actually got some stuff to do… Vi, you wanna come help me plan out my next mission?”

 

“Can I?” Vivian looked from Margaret to Mark. Mark nodded, and Vivian grinned. “Cool! I’m going to become a spy!”

 

The two of them walked off, leaving Margaret, Mark, and TJ alone in the front hall of the manour. Margaret took a moment to analyse TJ for any signs that he was under more stress than he was showing. He looked tired, which was expected. The past few days had been stressful and filled with jet lag, and it wasn’t as though TJ had been able to sleep on the airplane on the way over. But other than the lack of sleep, he looked fine. Tense, yes, but that could easily be signs of withdrawal. Margaret knew that TJ had been on the road to recovery up until the night his mother announced that she was going to run for president, and then his sobriety had started slipping away.

 

Margaret respected Elaine Barrish for most everything she did politically, but not as a mother. Elaine Barrish’s maternal instincts were lacking, especially when it came to doing what was best for her family, and not just best for her family’s image.

 

Honestly, there was a large part of Margaret that was still surprised that Elaine and Bud had even acknowledged their son’s drug problems. Most political parents shoved their families’ imperfections under the rug, or just outright disowned any reckless relatives. Margaret’s parents had almost done that to her when she’d come home from her imprisonment in Bangkok pregnant with Vivian. Margaret had heard enough horror stories to know that while TJ’s situation was still complete shit, he was at least lucky enough to be given the opportunity to go to rehab.

 

The three of them ended up in one of the lounges on the first floor. It wasn’t a commonly used room (none of the rooms on the main floor were ever used except during the holidays, because Calix rarely left the basement and there were enough offices on the second and third floors for W-squared and Liesel to geek out to their hearts’ contents) and so a thin layer of dust covered most of the surfaces. TJ situated himself into the chair in the corner farthest from where Mark and Margaret were. Mark gave Margaret a look, and she nodded in confirmation. Even though he probably didn’t realise that he was doing it, TJ was acting like a scared animal by putting himself as far away from them as he could get.

 

Margaret considered moving closer to him, but decided that TJ probably needed a little space to sort his head out. She sat down beside her fiancé and leaned forward on her elbows. “Thomas, we’re going to need to fill your mother in on this.”

 

“I know.” TJ said quietly.

 

“You’re going to have to call her, you know.” Mark said. Even without looking, Margaret could tell that he was stretched out on the couch beside her with his arms over the back of the couch, looking like he was completely at ease. Margaret knew he wasn’t, though. That relaxed pose was just for show, to make TJ think that the environment was a casual one, where even paranoid assassins could relax without having to worry about getting shot at. Mark tapped his feet against each other. “Margaret knows a lot, but she’s not a god. She can’t just whip the Secretary’s phone number out of thin air.”

 

“Actually, I have Madam Barrish on speed dial.” Margaret said, pulling out her phone and showing the evidence to Mark. Of course, Elaine Barrish hadn’t always been a part of Margaret’s speed dial collection; she’d added Elaine as soon as she’d been assigned to protect the woman, so that if there was ever a threat to Elaine’s life, Margaret could call her directly.

 

Margaret turned her focus back to TJ, who looked very uneasy and very pale. Margaret swallowed. “You… you don’t need to talk to her if you don’t want to. I can lie for you if you need me to.”

 

“I’m fine.” TJ shrugged Margaret’s offer off, and Margaret knew that she wouldn’t be handing her phone over to TJ any time soon. “She’s just my mom. It’s no big deal.”

 

Margaret could physically feel Mark rolling his eyes in the background as she dialed the Secretary’s number. Margaret elected to ignore her fiancé’s obvious disagreement with what TJ had said because she needed to stay focused on this phone call. Between herself and Mark, Margaret was the more diplomatic, and that came from growing up in the shadow of her father and the young politicians who came through her life. But when shit got personal, Margaret lost any sense of diplomacy. This call, it could get personal quickly, especially if Elaine started questioning Margaret’s choices about TJ. Margaret wasn’t TJ’s mother, but maybe that was an advantage. Maybe TJ needed someone who wasn’t related to him to want him to get better.

 

The phone stopped ringing after the fourth ring, but it wasn’t Elaine Barrish who answered. “Hello, you’ve reached Secretary Barrish’s personal number. Who is this?”

 

“Douglas, hand the phone over to your mother, I need to tell her something important.” Margaret said shortly. She’d only met Douglas Hammond once, and he acted like there was a log wedged up into the crevices of his ass. Margaret knew that she wasn’t one to let loose and go wild, so if she thought that Douglas needed to chill, then he probably needed to chill.

 

“Ma’am, I can’t let you talk to the Secretary until you tell me who you are. It’s part of the security protocol.” Of course, Douglas wasn’t about to release the log from his ass during this phone call. That would be too easy.

 

Margaret rolled her eyes. “I have Thomas, if that helps. And before you start trying to trace this call so you can bomb the living shit out of where I am, he’s fine, I’m not the one who took him, and this call is completely untraceable. Now please hand the phone over to your mother so that the grown-ups can discuss certain matters that need to be dealt with.”

 

“I’ll go get her.” Douglas sounded put-off. Good. Margaret just wanted to contact the Secretary of State so that she could stop wasting her energy searching for her other son and instead focus fully on the national emergency that needed to be dealt with.

 

“Oh my God, you are actually my favourite person ever.” TJ said from his corner. Margaret looked up through her lashes at him, raising one eyebrow questioningly. TJ leaned forward. “You just slayed my brother over the phone. I’m not letting him live that one down, oh my God, that was cold.”

 

“I’m just doing my job, Mr. Hammond.” Margaret smiled.

 

“Secretary Elaine Barrish speaking.” Elaine’s familiar voice crackled in over the phone in Margaret’s ear, diverting her attention away from TJ. Margaret sat up straight; even though the Secretary wasn’t in the room, she still had an urge to sit at attention when talking to the woman. “Hello, Madam Secretary. My name is Margaret Johnson, and I’m calling to let you know that your son, Thomas, has been located and is currently safe and sound in our base of operations in Austria.”

 

“I’d like to speak to him, please.” Elaine said. Margaret’s eyes flicked over to TJ before she could stop herself. “I’m sorry Madam Secretary, but Thomas is asleep at the moment. He’s been through quite a lot of trauma, so I’m not surprised that he’s exhausted, but he probably won’t feel up to speaking to you for another day or so.”

 

“What happened?” Elaine asked. Even though she tried to hide it (and for an untrained woman, she did a fairly good job), Elaine was afraid. She had every reason to be: her country was falling to shambles and she had almost lost one of her own children to the very group that destroyed her home. A lesser woman would have resigned from her position as Secretary of State in order to have time to recompose herself, but Elaine Barrish was not a lesser woman. She was resilient, stubborn, and everything Margaret strived to be as an agent.

 

But she was also just another person, and so Margaret had to keep some secrets from her. “Hydra took your son, Madam Secretary. I’m not sure why at the moment, but when I found him, he was strapped to the chair they used to wipe the Winter Soldier, so I assume that they were going to turn Thomas into another Winter Soldier asset to use in the future.”

 

Margaret paused, so that Elaine would have time for the lie to sink in. “Thomas is very lucky, Madam Secretary. He seems to have sustained no signs of psychological or physical torture, aside from being held in a testing facility for multiple days without any sustenance. He should be recovered well enough to return home by the end of the week, or as soon as things cool down enough in Washington that his psyche wouldn’t be destroyed by returning.”

 

“And you’re sure of all that?” Elaine asked. “Because if you bring back my son and he’s hurt… I don’t need to know who you are of who you work for to ruin you, Ms. Johnson. Not when it’s my family you’ve injured.”

 

“I would never purposely do anything to hurt Thomas, Madam Secretary.” Margaret said, looking straight at TJ as she said it. “If you believe nothing else I say, believe that. Thomas’s safety is my first priority at the moment, and I will do anything necessary to make sure that he returns home in a better state than he left.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note for this story: I know I said it was my NaNoWriMo project last year, and it was, but I've been going over it and editing it and there's a lot of stuff I want to/need to change.
> 
> I've also just started college and there is a lot going on right now, so my updates for everything except Avenger Spawn (which I've finished the sequel to already) will be much slower. Please, please do not abandon me, because I promise I will be back. I just need to go through the second and third arcs of this story and decide if I want to make it two separate parts or keep it as just one story. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, regardless of when I get around to updating next!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death comes at all the worst times. Heartbreak is usually one of these times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is where I started to make major adjustments, because Calix, who shows up in my original novels, was showing some signs of antisocial personality and I thought, 'hey, why not make that more canon/explicit'. So, this is my (probably innacurate, sorry) portrayal of Calix as antisocial/mildly sociopathic.
> 
> I am a very empathetic person myself, so my version of a sociopath might be a bit off.

Russia, 1986.

 

“That should be the correct formula for the daughter’s DNA.” Calix said, stepping back from the lab table. He’d been working on the adjusted Phoenix Protocol for seventeen hours straight, with no one to keep him company except for Sofia and a handful of lab assistants. The assistants had all been keeping their distance, though. Apparently they could all sense the storm brewing between Calix and Sofia.

 

She hadn’t said a thing to him since telling him the details of his mission, and she’d spent the whole trip to Russia glaring at him like he was the source of all her strife. Calix supposed that, in a way, he was, but that didn’t mean he was going to admit it. Hell, he might have actually done something good for Natalia. Sure, she was a baby again, but at least now she’d get a chance at living the life of a normal Russian girl, instead of an invalid who needed to leech off of her older sister and her sister’s husband to survive. Maybe now Natalia and her daughter would become powerful agents like Sofia, and the three Russian women would take over the world and bring it to its knees.

 

Not like Sofia would consider any of those options. All she saw was a girl subjected to vaguely inhumane scientific procedures. She didn’t see any advantage to the Phoenix Protocol now that it was inside of her sister, and soon to be inside of her sister’s child.

 

A more superior-looking Red Room agent walked down the stairs from the observation deck to where Calix and Sofia were standing in a tense silence. The agent extended her hand towards Calix. “Hand me the solution. I will administer it to the Phoenix Protocol subjects.”

 

“The procedure is very delicate.” Calix said. “Trust me, you’ll be more likely to get your desired results if I’m the one administering it.”

 

“Dr. Gordienko, while I appreciate your intent to see this experiment—” Sofia tensed up and Calix thought, for a split second, that she was going to kill the other agent, “—through to the end, you do not have the clearance level needed to go into the Asset’s holding cell. Therefore, please hand over the solution and go home. Your time here with the Red Room is over, and your contract is void.”

 

Calix faltered. “Excuse me, what? You’re just letting me go?”

 

“Yes, Dr. Gordienko, that is what we are doing.” The agent looked annoyed that Calix wasn’t doing as he was told, but Calix was the kind of person who liked to know the reasoning behind people’s actions. Especially when those people were powerful and more than a little bit corrupted. Calix didn’t have the greatest set of morals, but even he could recognise that what the Red Room had been doing was illegal and immoral on so many levels.

 

Calix slowly took the solution and handed it over to the gloved agent, knowing that spilling any would not end well for someone whose DNA hadn't already been calibrated to the protocol. Calix wore gloves because he didn't want any of the other scientists in the lab to ask him questions. He also didn't want to taint the solutions with anything he might have gotten under his fingernails. Calix kept his eyes on the agent as the agent walked away, which he would soon realise was a mistake, because he really should have been watching Sofia. The agent was just doing his job. The agent wasn't angry or thinking about revenge. Sofia, on the other hand, definitely was thinking about revenge of some kind. She also knew that she could pull off anything in this facility. She knew it well enough, and she knew how to kill a large amount of people in a short amount of time.

 

The agent left Sofia and Calix amongst the other lab rats. Calix turned back to his lab area, ready to pack up all the chemicals and supplies he had brought with him only to feel the familiar cold metal of a gun barrel against the back of his head. Calix closed his eyes and set the materials down. _So this is how Sofia plans to settle everything: brute strength and not words. I’m not that surprised…_ Calix raised his hands up above his head. “Sofia, there’s no need for this.”

 

“Do not try to calm me down.” Sofia said, her voice perfectly calm. She was no longer the empathetic, emotional woman that Calix called a sister. No, Calix was dealing with the Red Scare, a deadly assassin who bathed in the blood of anyone who crossed her. The pressure on the back of his head lessened. “Wars have been started over less, Doctor. I made myself clear when I let you in on this job: no harm was to come to Natalia. She is dead, and reborn into a body that will not remember anything. You have disappointed me, Dr. Gordiyenko. _Vy budete imet' khoroshiy den'_.”

 

And then Calix felt a bullet go through his skull, and the pain was so intense that he couldn’t feel anything. Of course, that was partially because he was dead. Dying. Taking a break from life. Calix had experienced this once before, in a lab accident that had gone horrifically wrong, and it was just as startling the second time.

 

He woke up about six or seven minutes later in a pool of his own blood, and sat up just to get his face out of it. The other scientists and lab assistants were all dead, but unlike Calix, they would not be returning from the dead. Calix stood up, shaking from the overabundance of adrenaline that was in his body at the moment. His Phoenix Protocol project wasn’t perfect, and there were a lot of different versions that he had tested to try and make it perfect. He had given himself an early, faulty version to keep himself alive, and Natalia--and her daughter, most likely--would be stuck with a version that was too good at repairing fatal injuries.

 

Calix walked through the bodies, not sure if Sofia was still in the building. She was incredibly efficient when she killed people, so if anyone could kill a building full of people in the time it took Calix to come back to life, it would be her. He knew better than to go after her. The Red Scare didn’t leave any survivours unless she meant for someone to know that she had been there, killed those people. Calix was the warning, for anyone from Hydra or the Red Room or any other government agency that Natalia Illyanovna Kobrska was off limits. Permanently.

 

So Calix made his way out, out of the Red Room building and out of Russia. He took a train to Sweden and headed back to his house. Ven would be waiting there for him, that was something calming to think about.

 

Calix arrived in Sweden that evening with blood on his shirt and a cigarette in his mouth. He walked up to the door, knocked, and then let himself inside. The lights were on and Ven was sitting on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and his mouth covered by his hands. His golden amber eyes watched Calix as Calix removed his bag and jacket and untucked his shirt. Calix raised an eyebrow at Ven. “You’ve seen worse, Ven. Stop looking at me like I died.”

 

“There’s a lot of blood on you, so I’m assuming that you really did die.” Ven said, and got up. Now Calix was the one watching, as Ven moved smoothly from the sofa to right beside Calix. Closer than they usually got in public, but Calix could understand why Ven was doing it. Most people didn’t have to worry about their boyfriends coming home covered in blood. Ven did, and while he covered his worries well, Calix still knew that they were there. That was what caring about someone meant: when they were hurt, you worried about them. Even when they didn’t hurt, you still worried, because _what if they got hurt_ was always a question. Calix leaned over and kissed Ven’s forehead. “You don’t need to worry about me. Death isn’t one of my concerns anymore.”

 

“Is being blown to pieces one of your concerns?” Ven stared up at him, and Calix realised that he had been interpreting this situation very, very wrongly. Ven wasn’t worried. Someone had threatened him via Calix. Calix dropped his expression; he too was like Sofia and kept up a facade to cover his true emotions. The difference was that Sofia felt too many emotions, and Calix didn’t feel enough.

 

“Who was it?” Calix took Ven’s chin in his hand, looking the younger man over to try and figure out any of Ven’s tells. Calix knew Ven had some; everyone had a tell. “Who threatened you? We can take care of them, whoever they are.”

 

“No, Calix.” Ven stepped away from Calix, but continued making eye contact with him. Ven wasn’t scared, then. He had made a decision, and Calix could try and change his mind, but it would only piss Ven off and probably make the situation worse for the both of them. Ven clenched his jaw. “My father told me to leave tonight, unless I wanted you to die. He said that he knew about your little secret--meaning the Protocol--and that he would act accordingly to ensure that when you died, you stayed dead. I don’t doubt that you could take him, and I don’t doubt that the two of us could kill him without too much effort.”

 

“Then why don’t we?” Calix asked, because it seemed like the most obvious solution. It had worked well for his sister in the past: kill the overbearing father, get the guy.

 

“Because I have spent the last three years running and hiding from my family. I have spent the last three years protecting you from them, and you’ve just gone off to Russia and made some formula to cure death and gotten yourself killed despite everything I’ve done to try and keep you safe.” Ven said, and while he wasn’t shouting at Calix, it felt like he was. The words carried more volume than the voice. “I’m tired of running, Calix, and I’m tired of you acting like you really are immortal. You’re not. Considering the kind of work you get involved with, you’re the one more likely to die here. You don’t act like it at all, and it’s stressing me out more than I can handle… I love you, Calix, but we have two very different fighting styles, and they aren’t working out.”

 

So that was it, then. Ven was leaving. Calix considered arguing back at him, trying to convince Ven that he was being naive and emotional and surely Ven’s father didn’t pose _that_ much of a threat… but it wouldn’t have done anything. Ven chose things based on what he felt, not what was logical.

 

Calix nodded. “Do you want me to help you pack, or would you prefer me to be elsewhere when you left?”

 

“I…” Ven hadn’t been expecting that to be Calix’s response. Calix hadn’t really been expecting that either, but it was out there now. He couldn’t exactly take it back and change it to something more predictable.

 

“I think you should take a shower, and then join me in bed. It’s not really night yet… I don’t need to start leaving for a few more hours.” Ven said, his voice quiet. He was as unsure of his response as Calix was. Calix started towards their bedroom, but paused before he really got there. He turned around and looked Ven over once more, hoping to finally find some kind of tell. There wasn’t one. Calix wished that there was. He wished that for once he could just look at Ven and not see him as anything special. Calix narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

 

“Calix, it’s going to hurt me whether I have sex with you or not.” Ven said, and there it was, that stubborn look of his that Calix enjoyed and despised at the same time. “I would rather we end on a high note, and not us awkwardly sitting around each other and not addressing all the things we never got to talk about. This is simpler.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm still on a slight hiatus, so updates won't be very frequent. Consider reading one of my other fics while you wait, maybe? (Fun fact, they all kind of tie into each other)


	13. Official PSA

Hello, readers of this fanfiction. My name is Jeff and I'm the author. I have an announcement to make, and I'm pretty sure that none of youse guys are going to like it.

The announcement is this: I'm going on hiatus. I don't know how long it will be, but it might just be forever. I'm not going to label this work as orphaned just yet, because I still have the Google Doc for it on my Drive, but don't expect a lot of updates from me.

You might be wondering "Why is Jeff announcing his official hiatus right now? He hasn't updated in a while." You are correct, I have not updated in a while. I've been dealing with a really bad bout of depression, and while that's (hopefully) decreasing, I just don't feel capable of continuing this story, or any of the others I have here on AO3. Except for One Thousand Words and the AvengerSpawn series, both of which I actually finished writing before I posted them online. Those two will get updated eventually. Everything else, probably not.

I haven't given up on writing, though. I'm just taking a break from fanfiction for a while. I'm actually participating in NaNoWriMo this month, and hopefully I will be publishing some of my original fiction within the next year.

It's been a great two years on this site. I know I'm not popular, but for the few readers I do get: thank you. I appreciate you very much.

Have a nice life,

-Jeffrey S Colins


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